Pumpkin hummus with crisp pitta chips, ready in 20 minutes

Autumn tends to push pumpkin towards cake and lattes, but it’s quietly brilliant in a dip. Stirred into hummus, it makes the texture silkier and gives the colour of a sunset, with a gentle sweetness that cumin and smoked paprika keep in check.

This is a snack for a small kitchen: a tin opener, a bowl, a blender or stick blender and one baking tray. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes, and it’s vegan as written.

Prep	Cook	Serves	Keeps
10 minutes	10 minutes	4 as a snack, 2 as a light lunch	Hummus 3 days in the fridge; chips 4 to 5 days airtight

The keeping times follow BBC Good Food’s homemade houmous and pitta chips, which notes that it’s really simple to make and costs very little. The pumpkin twist is this recipe’s own.

Ingredients

For the hummus

1 x 400g tin of chickpeas
150g plain pumpkin purée (tinned, 100% pumpkin)
2 tbsp tahini (about 30g)
1 small garlic clove
2 tbsp lemon juice (about half a lemon)
2 tbsp olive oil (30ml), plus extra to serve
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp fine salt, plus more to taste
3 to 4 tbsp cold water or chickpea liquid

For the pitta chips

3 pitta breads
2 tbsp olive oil (30ml)
½ tsp za’atar or dried oregano
A pinch of salt

To finish

1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
A pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

Check the label on the pumpkin. Tinned purée should be plain pumpkin; pumpkin pie filling contains sugar and spices, which will push the dip towards dessert. Tesco lists Baking Buddy Natural Pumpkin Puree at £1.70 for 425g, although it showed as out of stock when we looked, so try other supermarkets too.

The chickpeas are where the savings are. Here’s what a 400g tin costs at Tesco, depending on which one you grab.

Price of a 400g tin of chickpeas at Tesco

Method

Heat the oven. Set it to 180C (160C fan). BBC Good Food’s pitta chips use these same temperatures.
Make the chips. Slice each pitta in half so it separates into two thin pieces of bread, then cut into strips or wedges. Spread them on a baking tray, brush or toss with the olive oil, then sprinkle over the za’atar and salt.
Bake. Give them about 10 minutes, turning the tray halfway, until crisp and golden at the edges. They’ll keep crisping as they cool, so pull them out when they look a shade lighter than you’d like.
Toast the seeds. While the chips bake, warm the pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan over a medium heat for 2 minutes, shaking the pan, until they smell nutty and start to pop. Tip them onto a plate.
Drain the chickpeas. Put a sieve over a bowl, pour the tin through it and keep the liquid. It thins the hummus while adding richness and flavour.
Blend. Put the chickpeas, pumpkin purée, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, paprika and salt into a food processor or jug. Blend, scraping down the sides, until thick and fairly smooth.
Loosen. With the machine running, add a splash of the reserved liquid at a time, blending until smooth and creamy. Stop when it holds a soft swirl on a spoon.
Taste and adjust. More salt if it tastes flat, more lemon if it tastes heavy. A little extra cumin never hurts.
Serve. Spoon it into a shallow bowl, make a dip in the middle with the back of a spoon, and pour in a little olive oil. Scatter over the seeds and chilli flakes, and set the bowl on a board with the chips.

Swaps and tips

No food processor? A stick blender in a deep jug does the job. Failing that, mash everything with a fork or potato masher for a chunky, rustic dip that still tastes great on toast.

If you have or need	Swap	Note
No tahini, or avoiding sesame	Leave it out and add a little extra olive oil	Without it, you’ll still get a wonderful chickpea spread, just without the nutty note
No chickpeas	A tin of cannellini beans	Taste of Home suggests cannellini if you don’t have chickpeas
Pumpkin from a tin	Roasted fresh pumpkin or squash, mashed	Roast until completely soft, and let it cool before blending
Gluten-free	Cucumber, carrot and pepper sticks, or gluten-free crackers	Check the packet label
No pitta	Stale bread, brushed with oil and baked as thin slices	Watch it closely, as thinner slices crisp faster

If you want to roast your own, pumpkins are cheap this month. A Fast Loan UK check on 7 October 2026 found that Tesco had a small pumpkin for 59p and a large one for £2, though sizes and ranges vary between supermarkets. Roasting a whole one makes a lot of purée, so freeze what you don’t use.

The leftover pumpkin from the tin is easy to use up. Stir a few spoonfuls into a pan of pasta sauce or soup, or mash it with a little cinnamon and spread it on toast. Spooned into a pan of fried onions and lentils, it makes a quick dinner.

The hummus is better on day two, once the cumin and garlic have settled in, so make a double batch if you’re planning ahead. Loosen it with a teaspoon of water before serving if it has stiffened in the fridge. Leftover chips go in an airtight tin; if they soften, five minutes in a hot oven brings them back.

For a bigger spread with friends, set the bowl out with warm flatbreads, raw vegetables, olives and a block of feta. Everyone grazes and you’ve barely used the hob.

Allergen note: contains sesame (tahini; za’atar usually has sesame too) and gluten (wheat in the pitta). The recipe is vegan as written. Always check labels on tinned goods and spice mixes.