Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini, the Best Dip for Dinner

Once you make this baba ghanoush

Explore More

• What is Baba Ghanoush, and is it GhanouSH or GhanouJ?
• What Ingredients You Need for Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini
• How to Pick Zucchini at the Market
• How and Where to Eat Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini
• Best Dips for Dinner
• Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini

What is Baba Ghanoush, and is it GhanouSH or GhanouJ?

What Ingredients You Need for Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini

Almost every recipe has the same few ingredients differing in proportions, and these are what you need for this recipe:

• zucchini
• tahini
• garlic
• lemon/lemon juice
• olive oil
• salt
• parsley

How to Pick Zucchini at the Market

With that technique of adding ice water, plus testing and tasting over the years, I have my favorite recipe for Homemade Hummus with canned chickpeas.

Additional Ingredients Notes and Shopping Resources

Tahini. Tahini is a Mediterranean-based smooth puree of sesame seeds, essentially a seed butter. It adds a nutty, umami, toasted flavor to foods and a fluffy texture to hummus. I have tried and liked Artisana Organic, Joyva, Kevala Organic, Whole Foods 365 Organic and a few other brands that aren't memorable, but all of which I was able to find either online or in a regular grocery store in Los Angeles. The one I like the most is Soom, which I first saw in the little shop at Suraya restaurant in Philadelphia (photo above). If you can't find tahini, or are new to tahini and don't want to spend money on an entire jar, you can substitute with half the amount of sesame oil, or leave the tahini out (use this hummus recipe with no tahini here), with the understanding that the final hummus will be good, but will taste very different.

Salt. I use Diamond Crystal brand Kosher salt, which is in the burgundy red box. I also have Redmond's Ancient Sea Salt.

Olive Oil. The olive oil here is for garnish at the end so use your favorite. I use California Olive Ranch.

How and Where to Eat Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini

Wait. I don't understand the question? You mean there are ways to eat Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini other than just immediately out of the food processor with a spoon?

These are some awesome ways to serve and eat Homemade Hummus, which you can treat as a dip, spread, salad base, and it doesn't have to be considered just an appetizer:

• as a snack by itself with pita chips (here's my homemade Pita Chips recipe!)
• on the Epic Mediterranean Mezze Platter as a dip with pita bread and crudites
• spread baba ghanoush on toast, grilled flatbread (you can make this 3-ingredient flatbread yourself in a skillet!), or baked pizza piled with vibrant vegetables
• Loaded Dippable Platter as a dippable "salad," spooned onto a platter and loaded with chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, avocado, and red onions

Tools and Equipment You Need to Make Baba Ghanoush with Zucchini

• MESH STRAINER. I have a set of three different sizes, and use the medium one to drain the chickpeas and give them a good shake. (The larger strainer is great for sifting flours and straining stock).
• FOOD PROCESSOR. I have been using my small 4-cup Cuisinart FOR YEARS. I will only "upgrade" when this one falls apart because it still works like a dream, but most importantly, it's easy to clean and PUT AWAY. This 4-cup capacity is the right size for small jobs like dips and spreads.
• KITCHEN TOWELS. I have purchased so many "fancy" branded kitchen towels over the years, but always come back to the inexpensive, no brand 100% cotton floursack cloths because they're absorbent and actually "dry" your hands or dishes or whatever you're wiping. Regular terry-cloth style towels are absorbent, but don't dry out themselves, and traditional tea towels are thin and dry out, but are also rough on the skin. Keep fancy kitchen towels for display, get the floursack cloths for actual work.
• CUTTING BOARD. This is my favorite very large cutting board that also doubles as a food/crudites/cheese board. It is very heavy.
• KNIFE. My daily, all-purpose knife, expensive, but definitely worth it

The next thing to conquer? That insanely, intensely delicious garlic sauce that they serve with roast chicken and lamb at Mediterranean restaurants, toum!

Best Dips for Dinner

Once you've gotten yourself into the rhythm of making homemade dips for dinner, you can branch out and add ingredients like fresh or dried herbs, spices, and even other roasted or cooked vegetables for different flavors. Purée larger ingredients like roasted vegetables right along with with chickpeas. Add seasonings like herbs and spices when you add the tahini, lemon juice, and salt.

Here are a few of my favorite dips to mix and match:

• Restaurant Style Creamy Hummus with Canned Chickpeas
• Hummus from Dried Chickpeas
• Avocado Hummus. half a small avocado added with the chickpeas for Avocado Hummus (you could use half lime juice for the lemon juice and add a jalapeno to make it even more interesting!)
• Roasted Beet Hummus. 1 small chopped roasted red beet added with the chickpeas makes a bright fuschia Roasted Beet Hummus with an earthy flavor
• Hummus with No Tahini
• Edamame Hummus
• Tzatziki
• Beet Yogurt Dip

Food for Afterthoughts

Candyland. Monopoly. Risk. If you’re a real player, Axis and Allies. Game Night is a very wholesome Friday night with friends and family and perhaps a lonely co-worker or two, playing PG-13 board games.

Unless, of course, The Delicious lets loose on a Trivial Pursuit board with a pink playing piece and the determination to Roll Again until she hits every green-is-Nature-and-Science.

Call me competitive. Call me driven. Call me the Champion when I’m all up on your battleship with a candlestick, Colonel Mustard. I take playing games seriously. Really. Seriously. In the words of a very great man, Notorious SJG says "I’m not just a client, I’m the player president."

They say that it's not whether you win or lose, rather how you play the game, but obviously "they" are all losers, too busy enjoying the baba ghanouj, hummus, and tzatziki I made the night before. Hey, does the Rule Book state that you are not allowed to distract your opponents with food? Right, I didn’t think so. However, as much as I relish in spewing my utter triple word score genius all over the place, I do recognize that the point of Game Night is spending quality time with people.

“Quality,” though, is a very subjective term.

Game On

The first time we got together for a Game Night with this particular group of friends, we played several different games – Wise and Otherwise (like Balderdash on IQ steroids), Jenga (about the exact opposite of IQ), and at the end, late night Trivial Pursuit to the point we were giving away questions so we could just End. The Game. Please. The card says that the answer is “Audrey Hepburn” but hey, “Mel Torme” is close enough!

The second time, we got together for a Game Night, we played Taboo, and that, “taboo,” pretty much represents the rest of the night. I cannot go into too many details – mostly because I have no memory – about how an innocent game of intellectual charades lubricated with Stoli Vanil+diet orange soda=Creamsicle degenerated into straight shots of vodka and an impromptu post-midnight pool party up on the rooftop.

Midnight. Rooftop. Pool.

No, we weren’t partying like rockstars at the downtown Standard Hotel.

We were playing board games at my house.

Not sure when I’m having a third Game Night, but you’re all welcome to play for second place.