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Roasted Red Pepper Walnut Dip (Muhammara)

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This Roasted Red Pepper Walnut Dip is a fragrant dip flavoured with spices unique to the Middle East makes this an excellent dip to enjoy at home or with company. The sweet roasted red pepper and the slightly more pungent than paprika spice Aleppo pepper, makes this a delicious alternative to a dip without all the calories.

I love trying ethnic dishes. It allows you to explore new flavors, discover new spices, and aromas which in turn allows you to reinvent certain traditional dishes with new flavors . This Roasted Red Pepper Walnut Dip was definitely one of those dishes that make you think about reutilising those flavours. The Aleppo pepper is so fragrant and gives this dip a beautifully festive color.

This dish is originally from Syria, which is why the key ingredient here was named after the capital of Syria, Aleppo. In arabic, the name of this dish is Muhammara which means “reddened”, is a mildly spiced pepper found in Syrian, Levantine and Turkish cuisines. The Aleppo pepper gives the dish a little bit of a kick but not so spicy as to provide you with indigestion, and the pomegranate balances out the spice with a sweet yet sour undertone. It was so good I was licked the spoon clean!

Being on a low carb diet, I’ve been searching for something that I can snack on that is flavorful, that doesn’t make me feel like I’m on a diet, and fills me up. Using walnuts as its main ingredient, muhammara is full of healthy fats and high in protein keeping you fuller, longer.

Being from Syria, some of the ingredients can be a bit of a challenge to find, but your best bet would be to look in the ethnic section of your local grocery store or a specialized middle eastern store.

This was a pretty easy recipe to make since it requires very few steps, and you pretty much just pop everything into the blender, and then you’re done! It would be tough to mess this one up. I opted for blistering the peppers a little, which increases the sweetness of the peppers and makes it easier for you to peel them after. You don’t want to blend the peppers with the skins on cause it would just make for an unpleasant texture. However, it can get a little tedious. When putting your oven on broil, you’ll want to watch it like a hawk because they can burn really quickly. Here is the amount of blistering you’ll want to have on your peppers.

Peeling them after can also get a little tedious. You’ll want to use a little paring knife to do so. But once you’re done doing this, you pop everything into the blender, and you’re done! Here is the texture that you’ll be looking for:

All in all, this was an awesome guilt-free recipe full of flavor, and I’ll definitely be using this in my bank of recipes for holiday pot lucks.

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Muhammara Roasted Red Pepper Walnut Dip

This Roasted Red Pepper Walnut Dip is a beautifully fragrant dip flavoured with spices unique to the Middle East makes this an excellent dip to enjoy at home or with company. 
Course Side Dish, Snack
Cuisine Middle Eastern
Keyword Dairy-Free, dip, Gluten-Free, muhammara, red pepper
Servings 6
Author Happy as a Yam Recipes

Ingredients

  • 3 red bell peppers
  • 1 1/2 cups raw walnuts, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 teaspoons paprika
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 teaspoon Aleppo Pepper
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • Kosher salt and pepper to taste
  • Coriander to garnish

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350F. Place bell peppers on a baking sheet, and roast them for 10 min. Half way through, change the setting to broil rotate frequently until skin is slightly blackened. (See image)
  • Peel the red peppers using a paring knife and discard the peels, stem and seeds. Throw the roasted red peppers, walnuts, garlic, paprika, cumin, Aleppo pepper, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses and olive oil into a food processor with a teaspoon of salt, and run until the dip is smooth.
  • Garnish with coriander. Cool and serve.

Other delicious dips you’ll love:

Baba Ganouj (Roasted Eggplant Dip)


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