The Definitive Ranking Of Every Sabra Hummus Flavor

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Hummus is a wildly versatile dish and ingredient, perfect for dipping, spreading on a sandwich or pita, or even just eating straight off a spoon if you're in the mood. I have a close relationship with this Mediterranean staple — there's always some in my fridge. When I don't feel like making hummus from scratch, I buy it, and I've even gone so far as to taste and rank store-bought hummus brands from worst to best. Sabra offers an array of well-loved dips (it also produces one of the best store-bought guacamoles), and the brand brilliantly exploits the fact that hummus, with its simple base of processed chickpeas, tahini, and oil, takes well to flavor upgrades and additions.

There are 11 flavors of Sabra hummus, ranging from the unadorned classic to some creative takes that I've never seen before, such as the chimichurri version. Always hungry for new hummus ideas, I jumped joyfully at the chance to review this full lineup of Sabra varieties. During the tasting process, I kept my eyes (or at least my taste buds) open for pleasing, balanced flavors and a creamy texture — no dry or grainy options for me, thank you. Here's how these 11 contenders performed.

Some recommendations are based on first-hand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer/distributor/etc.

I love a good, plain hummus as much as I enjoy a dressed-up one, and I truly appreciate the fact that Sabra's Classic hummus has so many rave reviews online. This product appears to have inspired more than one consumer to join our flock of happy hummus-heads. However, there's also the camp that finds it too sour or bitter – a group I found myself a part of when previously I tasted and reviewed a whole slew of different hummus brands.

This new round of taste-testing did not change my opinion; Sabra Classic still has that unpleasant sour flavor — a mystery when you consider the product's relatively traditional ingredients list. It couldn't be the soybean oil, as that's a neutral oil (used when you don't want an oil with flavor). Maybe it's the cooking process. Either way, the texture was fine — not grainy or too thick — but just a touch dry. Given this flavor's popularity, though, you might want to try it out and zhuzh it up with whatever toppings you have on hand, or smear it on a busy sandwich.

I love the fact that Sabra offers this flavor. Caramelized onions are a popular hummus addition for home cooks looking to upgrade this versatile dip, but it's not a flavor I've ever seen in my local grocery stores. Making the dip yourself could take a while — getting vegetables to release their sugars is a slow process, even if you use a steaming technique to caramelize the onions faster.

The Sabra Caramelized Onion hummus was fairly creamy, but I did encounter a couple of tough, gritty pieces of cooked onion that put a proverbially sour taste in my mouth — and, literally, a bitter one, since that's the onions' dominant flavor. Their presence in the dip is a fun touch, but I'd like them to be sweeter to balance out that tang. Although this wasn't my flavor, I can see it working well spread on a sandwich that features bacon or honey-baked ham — something rich and sweet to counteract what the onions are doing.

Falafel — spiced and fried chickpea patties — is one of my favorite Mediterranean dishes, so I was eager to see what Sabra did with its new Falafel-Style hummus flavor. What was I expecting? Chunks of falafel (yes, chickpeas within chickpeas) so deliciously spiced that I wouldn't be able to stop eating the dip. When I opened the container, I was met with an inspiring sight: loads of what must be dried parsley, one of the ingredients categorized as "falafel seasoning," along with some red flecks of tomato and other good-looking components.

While this hummus wasn't unpleasant, it didn't live up to my expectations. It wasn't bland, but it was missing the toothsome depth I was looking for. If I didn't know which hummus flavor this was, I might not have guessed it was Falafel-Style at all. 

"Falafel-Style," by the way, refers to the spices used in the dish rather than the inclusion of actual pieces of falafel in the hummus. This makes sense — falafel would surely get soggy hanging out for weeks at a time — but the damage was already done with the underwhelming flavor, and this extra sense of disappointment didn't help.

Roasted pine nuts have a wonderfully buttery, rich flavor that I was keen to experience in a hummus. Unfortunately, though, the little seeds (yep, they're actually seeds) didn't get much of a chance to showcase their nutty charms in this particular Sabra hummus flavor. My first thought was that the dip was surprisingly tart, but I think the real deal is that it just tastes like the Classic variety, except with a lot more texture — a texture I really liked. The pine nuts are very noticeable on the palate and yield a pleasing, chewy consistency.

The consistency makes this hummus flavor more of an active eating experience than some of the others, as the pine nuts draw attention to themselves. If you're not used to that in a hummus, it could bother you, but if you're spreading it on a sandwich along with other substantial ingredients and layers of textures, it could be great. With the flavor lacking any discernible nuttiness, though, I'm still ranking this in the lower middle. I suppose you could always add toasted pine nuts from your own pantry, which could give this hummus the lift it needs.

For those unfamiliar with olive tapenade, it's a paste-like spread made from olives and their oil, capers, and occasionally anchovies. It's meant to lend an umami-rich brininess to whatever you grace it with, which is why I wasn't surprised that this hummus flavor exhibited a robust tartness. It was the texture, however, that I found most enjoyable.

The Sabra Olive Tapenade hummus had a great consistency — of all the "must chew" flavors I tried (the ones with more substantial ingredients), this one had the best texture. Understandably, the flavor was a bit sharp on its own, likely from the inclusion of green olives. (A tapenade in the traditional style uses only the slightly less mouth-puckering black olives.)

This hummus flavor would pair well with deep, meaty notes to complement that briny tartness. Even a hunk off a crusty, oily baguette could do it. For me, raw veggies may not be enough to balance this one out, and straight off a spoon with nothing else for it to play with, the flavor was a bit overpowering. Nonetheless, I see what Sabra is doing with this dip. This hummus is meant to be spread on something, and a judicious choice there could make all the difference.

It's not easy to find hummus flavored with spinach and artichoke in stores, at least not where I live. Being a fan of spinach and artichoke dip, I exclaimed in delight when I saw this Sabra flavor. I opened the lid with visions of creamy spin-art dip dancing in my head, but I was a little bewildered to find red and green bell peppers staring back at me. This was my bad; the label doesn't say "spinach and artichoke dip." The same curse that befell the Falafel-Style flavor had come to this one: My expectations prepared me for the wrong thing.  

This veggie-forward take on hummus translated to the flavor, which had quite a "greenness" to it when sampled with a spoon. The artichokes gave an acidic note that I don't typically notice in a spinach artichoke dip, thanks to the cheese, and I missed that creamy element here (despite cheesy hummus literally not being a thing I've ever seen for sale). The texture was fine, with the veggie elements offering the standard chew, and overall, this flavor was pleasingly okay. The right cracker, something dark and grainy, could bring it up a notch and give it a bit of depth. 

Garlic is a classic ingredient in traditional hummus, and while a standard recipe will call for one to two minced cloves, you can always go wild and add in as much as your garlic-tooth desires. Sabra Roasted Garlic hummus is for the folks who always do just that. There was a respectable amount of garlic in this container — nothing to wow over, visually, but enough that, properly mixed, the hummus offered flavor galore in every bite.

I gathered up a middling quantity of roasted garlic chunks in my spoonful, so the flavor was pretty robust on my palate — also a tinge bitter, potentially from the use of preservatives in jarred garlic (jarlic), but possibly just because of the base hummus beneath it. Texture-wise, I'm not picking up any hard, impossible-to-chew garlic pieces like I did with the caramelized onion flavor, so that's nice. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good hummus nonetheless.

Sabra's Supremely Spicy hummus, with its intimidating name, makes big promises. I've tried so-called spicy hummus flavors before, but there has always been a decidedly sweet element to balance the heat, such as in the Fresh Cravings Honey Jalapeño hummus. And, honestly, none of the other ones I've tried have been all that spicy. This Sabra flavor, though?

Whoo yeah, it was spicy, though you could probably modify that by scooping up fewer chili peppers in your introductory spoonful. This won't have your ears on fire or anything, but it is the spiciest hummus I've ever had the chance to taste, and it's a great one for the spice lovers out there who can never get enough heat –  especially not in a dish like hummus, which isn't a traditional vehicle for hot flavors.

Though there's no sugar in this flavor, a subtle sweetness kicks in (likely from the red bell peppers) while the spice does its thing on the tongue. The result is delightful. Granted, the pepper chunks are a little tough to chew, but the flavor makes up for that. I'm curious to see how a few dollops of this would perform in a zesty cold salad recipe, like a tuna salad made with pimiento cheese.

Back when I reviewed all the best hummus brand flavors, I found the Fresh Cravings Roasted Red Pepper offering to be the absolute best store-bought hummus. Sabra's version also garners a lot of positive reviews online, but was unavailable when I shopped for that general hummus ranking, and I've always wondered how it would have fared among the others.

What I found this time around was a hummus with a nice chew to it from the red pepper bits. The flavor was robust and savory, with the barest hint of sweetness from the peppers to balance the bitter notes in Sabra's base hummus. I had this one ranked as the best flavor until two other contenders dethroned it, but I can say with 100% certainty that Sabra's Roasted Red Pepper hummus would have beaten that of Fresh Cravings. I've sampled it from a spoon for this ranking, as a dip for baby carrots, and even plopped it onto a "this-is-all-the-energy-I-have" dinner of fried eggs, where it invigorated the protein, if not me.

Sabra appears to be the only brand out there making chimichurri hummus, a fact both exciting ("Oh boy, this is going to be different") and concerning ("Does chimichurri even belong in hummus?"). Chimichurri is an herb-based South American sauce and condiment with a brightness that perfectly complements rich, meat-based dishes. Different recipes are possible, but a standard example consists of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley and oregano, oil, vinegar, diced onions or shallots, and a dash of light heat from red pepper flakes. Some people compare chimichurri to pesto, though the two are very different in texture and ingredients.

Sabra opts for dried onion and cilantro (a common, though less traditional inclusion) as the only herb, in addition to the other standard chimichurri ingredients. For me, this all worked; it gave the hummus a salty, green-veggie-forward flavor with an exciting zing at the end of each bite. Texture-wise, it was a bit gritty due to the cilantro, but the flavor made up for it. This would be great on a cracker, and since chimichurri is perfect for drizzling on eggs, I had to try it on mine. It lent a welcome boldness to the plate (though Supremely Spicy still won the egg battle).

If, before I sampled all these varieties, you had told me that a flavor as seemingly uninspired as Lemon Twist would be the Sabra hummus that earned the top spot, I would have been skeptical. Gustatory simplicity has its own charm, but with flavors like Chimichurri and Falafel on offer, how was it possible that a flavor showcasing an already standard hummus ingredient could win this thing?

The answer is, it was just really good. (Don't expect imagery-rich language for this one.) The flavor was understandably citrus-forward and slightly sweet, and those two elements excelled as a balancing note to the more tart Sabra hummus undertones. The lemony zing (from the dried lemon peel, I assume) beautifully punctuated the bite, coming through after a few moments on the palate. I've had creamier hummus, as this was just a tad dry, and the parsley on top doesn't do much beyond distinguishing it from the Classic flavor, but this didn't change my assessment. I would love to try Lemon Twist hummus as a spread on a chicken sandwich, where the zesty notes would brighten and balance the protein.

Taste and texture were the key criteria in my assessment of Sabra's hummus flavors. If a flavor contained any sour, unbalanced, or otherwise unpleasant notes, it would be ranked lower. In terms of texture, I prefer creamier over grainier hummus. For hummus flavors that feature larger pieces of whole ingredients, the consistency of each piece should be mostly uniform, and the ingredients should not feel unpleasant on the palate. 

To get a sense of how each flavor performs with these features, I tasted each hummus after mixing in its toppings (if applicable), and ate a spoonful of it to see how it does with no vehicle of bread, cracker, or crudité to modify it. Though I used some of these flavors in my snacks and meals after the initial tasting session, their performances there did not influence my ranking.