Why did my hummus go bad?

Question

I make hummus about once a week, and make it essentially the same way each time. This week, my hummus tasted as it usually does immediately after I made it. However, I put it in the fridge for three days without eating any, and it tasted and smelled off when I tried to eat it today. It didn't smell rotten or anything, just extremely bland. Normally, it smells pretty garlicky. There was also basically no taste.

I used the same ingredients that I normally do except for a different brand of tahini, but the tahini smells fine. I am in a new apartment, so I am using a different fridge than I used to. This fridge was set to be much colder than my previous one, and I found ice chips in my hummus. Could this be the reason my hummus went bad? I also soak the chickpeas in the fridge overnight before I cook them. Are there any other things that could have contributed?

Answer 1

Maybe just not enough salt? Perhaps you forgot to add salt, or you switched from tahini with salt to without. Lack of salt, to most people, will make something otherwise well-seasoned taste bland.

Beyond that, since you're saying it also smells less garlicky, perhaps you used garlic that wasn't as strong as usual, or less of it.

The fact that it partially froze probably didn't matter, unless it was perhaps still partially frozen when you ate it. This is more in the domain of frozen desserts usually, but cold does numb the senses a bit, and the things you normally smell aren't as volatile at lower temperatures. We can make guesses about compromised texture and separation from freezing, but really, none of this is going to make something go from flavorful to completely bland.

Answer 2

Home made hummus tends to spoil quickly, however if you store it it shouldn't be much of a problem, freezing the hummus would probably not be a good idea, since you probably don't ground the hummus enough so it would be a totally smooth paste, so if its a bit grainy, when freezing the grainy parts will freeze first ruining the texture a bit. also I think that once its unfrozen the water will not do so much good either. That's for the freezing part.

Now for other tips, you should always remember to use clean utensils when serving or spreading it over on bread, since germs from cheese or other spreads might spoil the hummus quickly.

Also, I've heard that when you serve hummus you need to stir it for a while so that the flavours will be equally spread over the hummus (my guess is that when you store it for some time a some parts gather up top and some sink down, which makes the flavours different).