A non-traditional but satisfying edamame hummus made with nutritious edamame beans and pumpkin seeds.

After a bad run of horrendous weather events in New Zealand lately, many fresh vegetables are expensive and not at their best - so we're looking towards the freezer and thinking about how to get creative with what we find.

I was rummaging through the freezer last week and found an unopened bag of frozen, podded edamame beans I'd forgotten about. Bonanza! They're an easy addition to lots of meals, and all of us enjoy them.

A bit about edamame beans

Edamame beans are whole, immature soy beans. They come in a small green pod that holds 2-3 beans. You can buy them frozen, either in the pod, or free flow like frozen peas. They should be cooked before use - a few minutes is all it takes.

A cup of edamame provides about 18g of protein, and is high in folate, vitamin K and a range of other vitamins and minerals.

My big girl learned the joys of popping salted edamame beans out of their pods, straight into her mouth, at our favourite Japanese restaurant when she was about three years old. In fact she's been known to demolish a whole bowl of them in minutes, you know, to make sure she doesn't miss out.

Treated like a vegetable, rather than a legume, edamame can be steamed or boiled, then eaten as they are or added to salads and stir fries. For a quick and easy meal I like to add half a cup of cooked edamame beans to a bowl of rice, top it with avocado, kimchi and a splash of tamari and call it lunch or dinner. Yum.

Edamame hummus

I love having some kind of home made spread, dip or hummus on hand to add to salads and work lunches throughout the week. I make my own hummus regularly, so after finding that bag of beans in the freezer, I thought I'd give edamame hummus a whirl instead.

I cooked two cups of edamame beans, then blended them with all the usual hummus ingredients. I decided to add half a cup of pumpkin seeds to increase the healthy fats and boost the iron content (pumpkin seeds are, surprisingly, one of the highest plant based sources of iron around).

The resulting edamame and pumpkin seed hummus is delicious and familiar tasting, if a little 'greener' in both looks and flavour. It's has a bit of texture from the pumpkin seeds and is moreish in all the right ways. Nutritionally, this edamame hummus is a little higher in both protein and iron than regular hummus made with chickpeas.

I vote for serving this edamame hummus spread thickly on grainy toast (pictured here on a few slices of life-changing bread) for a light meal, or with crackers or crisps for a tasty snack. I'm extra pleased to say it met with the toddler seal of approval in my house, which is worth a lot!

Get the recipe