This spring crudité with minty pea hummus allows you to dip colorful and crunchy seasonal produce like asparagus, beets, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, and cauliflower in a creamy sweet green pea dip.
Treat that special lady in your life with a colorful crudité platter! If you’re looking for new ideas to make for this year’s Mother’s Day celebration, then look no further! I’ve got a beautiful crudité platter with minty pea hummus and lots of crunchy vegetables. All that’s needed for this blended dip is fresh sweet green peas, chickpeas, mint, cilantro, chives, and garlic.
For the most flavorful produce, look for seasonal spring ingredients like multi-colored cauliflower, beets, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, endives and asparagus. The crisp and refreshing vegetables are the perfect complement to the light and savory hummus. Mom will enjoy this flavorful gourmet recipe, but she’ll never know how simple it was to make!
What is crudité?
You’ve seen it appear many times as the unappealing heap of vegetables at parties, tucked behind the more indulgent fare. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Crudite is traditionally a French-inspired appetizer composed of raw vegetables and served with a sauce or dip designed to feed a crowd.
Here are some essential tips for making a beautiful crudité platter:
- Choose Seasonal Vegetables: Produce that is at the height of its growing period has the most flavor, which is notably detected when enjoying them raw, or as the star of a dish. For the freshest produce start at your local farmers market, or make sure you carefully inspect the available selection at the grocery store. Some suggestions for vegetables in season for spring include sugar snap peas, asparagus, cauliflower (purple, orange, and romanesco), red bell pepper, carrot sticks, baby tomatoes, beets, and lettuces like endive.
- Color and Crunch: What adds the visual “wow” factor to a crudité platter is finding vegetables of different vibrant colors, shapes, and sizes. Most of the raw vegetables will provide a satisfying crunch, however, if needed feel free to pre-cook vegetables that would benefit from a little heat application like broccoli or asparagus. I couldn’t help but include some fingerling potatoes to add to the vegetable crudité, making sure to blanch and shock them before serving.
- Dip it!: There is always a dip to include with the crudité, may it be a tangy vinaigrette, creamy aioli or smooth hummus. Chose any sauce or spread that would boost the flavors of the vegetables.
Here comes the fun part! Use your creativity to arrange the vegetable crudité that will surely look like an edible work of art.
Homemade hummus
Hummus is a quick dip loaded with nutritious ingredients that be prepared in just 5 minutes with the right blender. I wanted to continue featuring the flavors of spring, so I used a combination of fresh sweet English peas, mint leaves, cilantro, garlic, lemon, chives, and chickpeas. I used a few fundamental techniques to make a super smooth hummus with my Vitamix blender.
The first step is to aerate some of the starchy liquid from the canned chickpeas. The blender has a manual speed dial that can gradually ramp up in speed to whip the liquid which doubles in volume. This process helps to lighten up the hummus and add structure from the very beginning. Tahini sesame paste and lemon juice is added and further processed to create a consistent mixture.
What’s incredible about making the hummus in this blender is the option to select the “Dip and Spreads” setting. Typically the fresh peas would need to be heated before using. However, the pre-set smart controls allow for the additional step to be taken out.
The sheer force of the rapidly moving laser-cut stainless steel blades heats up with time and speed, cooking the peas and activating their natural starches to help create a creamy dip. This particular setting progressively increases the spinning rate over a period of 1 minute to help effortlessly break down and gradually cook the peas in minutes.
The remaining ingredients, chickpeas, olive oil, roasted garlic cloves, salt, mint leaves, cilantro leaves, and chives are then added to the Vitamix. I used the “Dip and Spreads” setting two additional times, for a total of 5 minutes of processing time.
You’ll notice that the dip will be warm after blending, which helps to delicately cook the fresh peas and infuses all of the ingredients unique tastes together. The blender does an impeccable job of creating a velvety textured hummus that’s just the right consistency to coat the vegetables for maximum flavor delivery.
This hummus recipe makes a generous amount to feed a larger group or save some for later. It also can be made ahead of time if you need to meal prep as it stores well in the refrigerator for a few days.
When this show-stopping appetizer is presented, your family will keep coming back for extra nibbles. This crudité and minty pea hummus will impress and wow mom on Mother’s Day, just like she does every day!
More appetizer recipes
Using fresh or frozen peas
Fresh English peas are not always available in the market as they are a springtime crop. However, frozen peas can always be found in the freezer section of the grocery store. Frozen peas are typically picked, shucked, and rapidly chilled to preserve the natural sugars, inevitably providing a sweeter taste. Peas that have been sitting for several weeks in the market slowly convert the sugars to starches, so they’re not as sweet.
Spring Crudité with Minty Pea Hummus
Ingredients
Hummus
- 2 garlic cloves, unpeeled
- ¼ cup canned chickpea liquid
- 1 cup canned chickpeas, liquid reserved
- 6 tablespoons lemon juice
- ⅓ cup tahini
- 1 cup fresh shelled green peas, in the shell
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup mint leaves, packed
- ¼ cup cilantro leaves, packed
- 1 tablespoon chopped chives
Crudite
- 8 ounces fingerling potatoes, cut in half lengthwise
- 8 ounces asparagus, trimmed to 6-inch long spears
- 8 ounces cauliflower florets, green and purple
- 8 ounces zucchini, cut into ¼-inch thick slices
- 8 ounces beets, yellow, peeled and cut into ⅛-inch thick slices
- 8 ounces carrots, peeled and sliced lengthwise
- 4 ounces sugar snap peas
- 4 ounces baby tomatoes
- 1 bunch radish, leaves removed and sliced lengthwise
- 1 head belgian endive, leaves trimmed on the bottom and separated
Instructions
Hummus
- Heat a small skillet over medium heat. Roast garlic until the outsides are browned, turning cloves over occasionally, about 8 minutes. Peel garlic and set aside.
- Meanwhile, prepare the chickpeas. Lightly shake the can and drain the chickpeas in a colander, reserving ¼ cup of the liquid.
- Add ¼ cup of the reserved chickpea liquid to a blender. Process on high speed for 1 minute until the liquid turns white and frothy and doubles in volume.
- Add lemon juice and tahini, process on high speed for 1 minute until smooth and combined.
- Add fresh green peas and process in high speed for 1 minute until smooth.
- Add chickpeas, olive oil, roasted garlic cloves, salt, mint leaves, cilantro leaves, and chives. Process on high speed for 1 minute, until smooth.
- Scrape down the sides of the blender cup and process on high speed for 1 minute until hummus is smooth, creamy and completely combined.
- Taste and season with more salt or lemon juice as desired.
- Transfer hummus to a serving bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.
Crudité
- Bring a large pot of water to boil.
- In a large bowl make an ice water bath by adding 4 cups of water and 4 cups of ice.
- Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender, about 8 to 12 minutes depending on size. Transfer to ice water bath and allow to chill for 5 minutes.
- Add asparagus to boiling water and cook for 30 seconds. Transfer to ice water bath and allow to chill for 5 minutes.
- Drain the vegetables and dry between paper towels before serving.
- Place hummus in a bowl on a serving platter.
- Arrange the cooked potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, zucchini, beets, carrots, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, radish, and endive around the hummus.
- Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate until ready to enjoy.
Notes
- Recipe Yields: 2 cups (511g)
- Serving Size: 2 tablespoons (32g)
- Hummus can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
- Frozen peas can be substituted for fresh peas. Defrost and drain before using.
Nutrition Facts
Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000-calorie diet. All nutritional information is based on estimated third-party calculations. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods, and portion sizes per household.
Katie Kruse says
Jessica,
Thank you for this recipe. It was a perfect hummus. Your directions for using the Vitamix were appreciated because this was the first thing I made in it. I have the Costco version which does not have the dip feature but with your directions it did not make a difference. Keep up the Vitamix recipes!
Maggie Morris says
Jessica,
Katie’s sister Maggie here. Katie was so happy with the recipe that I made it also. I brought it to my son and daughter-in-law who are celebrating the birth of their first baby! My son send me a text – said it was great and asked me for every ingredient in the hummus. Tim is 34 and he has never asked me about a recipe! So they loved it and I sent him the recipe.
Keep up the wonderful recipes!
Maggie
Jessica Gavin says
Hi Maggie, always a pleasure to hear from you! Congrats on the new bundle of joy, such exciting times!!! I’m so happy to hear that the family enjoyed the recipe, I hope he makes it for you next time 🙂