You can make it without tahini - it is still very tasty. You can put in a variety of flavours, sundried tomatoes or roasted red peppers, capers, olives, lemon, etc. There are lots of great recipes out there.
@Val I don't refrigerate my tahini and it keeps for a very long time - does the jar you purchased say to refrigerate after opening?
Emma JC
The info and the facts about tahini storage are quite controversial. My jar says: "After opening, keep refrigerated for 2-3 days" (It means that it may go bad!) OTOH, if sold in glass sealed jars,- store-brand tahini can be stored literally for years if the lid is not damaged, and this discrepancy is weird! (In plastic jars - a lot less). I got mine 1.5 years ago (just to try it)! At first, i didn't want to move my lazy b*tt, because i was able to buy hummus in grocery stores any time i wanted, then Liza took my blender, and i had no blender at all, then i took it to the country, but i didn't want it again, then i took the ingredients home, but i was too busy, and blah, blah, blah... In a nutshell, tons of excuses. I used to cook a lot in my younger years, and i'm sick of cooking.
This summer, i didn't want my glass blender to get oily, because Liza makes food for David in it, and i forgot this idea. But luckily, Gala bought another blender (immersion one), and i used it. My tahini tasted fresh,- it means that it has tons of preservatives, but i just didn't wan't to waste products. I also checked it out on the forum of russian speaking Israeli people, and they say that home-made tahini can be kept in the fridge for ~a month maximum. Everyone is afraid of rancidification, and if the product is more or less natural (minimum to zero preservatives), and if it contains natural oils,- then it will get rancidificated very very quickly, and it's not only gross by taste, but also dangerous for your health. Thus, in soviet times, any oily product (especially natural sunflower oil which was a cloudy solution) was kept in the fridge (with no exceptions), because there was no such diverse range of E-additives, haha.
Anyway, like you said, there are a lot of ways to make hummus without tahini. Maybe it won't taste like hummus, but still it's an option for a person who hates oil like me. One of my Instagram followers said he makes home-made tahini out of sesame seeds and it tastes the same, and it's not oily. I will think of it, as i regularly buy sesame seeds and eat them as they are, instead of candies, so why not...
P.S. i realized that tahini (at least a store-brand one) is harmful for my blocky carcass: no, i didn't get poisoned, and my stomach and guts reacted well, but i've already got two pimples because of sudden oil consumption, and getting pimples is unthinkable for me, as i never ever have them, so i'd better ditch it ASAP.
I had no chickpeas left, but i didn't want to lose my tahini leftovers, so i used cans of pink beans. Plus lemon juice and seasonings. I think i'll take a few toasts of rye bread and hummus upstairs, to my upper veranda, and devour them with a salad of fresh chopped cabbage and local tomatoes, plus pickles, of course. These pickles that are sold in the blue countryside kiosk are so good...
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