I was mulling over my laughably cheap hummus recipe with peanut butter substituting for tahini.

The biggest single cost for making home made hummus is most likely the tahini, hence substituting peanut butter. But what if you could make tahini at home, at a laughably cheap price? Is that possible? And how difficult is it to do?

While I was out and about this morning I went to our local Chinese supermarket this morning, and discovered a little treasure trove of sesame seeds. Black seeds, toasted, or plain, and with a choice of packaging, to boot.

Packaging makes a surprising difference, though. 9.5oz plain sesame seeds in a plastic jar, $3.99. Same seeds in a 7oz plastic bag? $1.49.

Tahini bought in a local store? $4.99 for 16oz. We are on to a good start with 14oz for $2.98, making it $3.40 per pound, or roughly a third cheaper.

How hard is it to make tahini? Not very, according to this recipe.

So there you have it: if you want to, or need to for health reasons, you can make healthy home made hummus with tahini. It’ll be more expensive than making it with peanut butter, but still an awful lot cheaper than buying hummus off the shelf