Falafel is a popular Middle Eastern food made up of chick peas or garbanzo beans, fresh herbs and spices that are formed into classic round balls or patties.

Overview

Falafel is a popular Middle Eastern delicious balls made with chickpeas, fresh herbs and spices. It is vegan and vegetarian, these falafels are perfect when in wraps, pitas, sandwiches and salads.

This recipe is a pure celebration of vegetarian and high protein. This high-protein, Vegetarian, vegan recipe is a super addictive which was really finished within hours when made at home. So a word of CAUTION over here! You can really make a big batch of falafels and freeze it for future use.

In this post, I will share three ways to cook falafel. Please choose your favorite!

Recipe Insights

What is falafel?

Falafel is a deep-fried ball or patty-shaped fritter originated in Middle Eastern cuisine made from ground chickpeas, fresh herbs and spices. Falafel continues to be the people’s daily grub in Egypt and you can find it from street vendors in almost every neighborhood. It’s often served in sandwich form with a generous drizzle of tahini and loads of Mediterranean salad, along with slices of roasted or fried eggplant.

What kind of food is falafel?

Falafel is a Middle Eastern cuisine and a very popular street food which is made with ground chickpeas, fresh herbs and spices.

Is falafel freezer friendly?

Yes, falafels are heavenly patties or chickpeas balls that can be made in big batches as a meal preparation. It can stored and freezed in refrigerator for atleast 1 to 2 months depending upon the usage. You should always take falafels that you require in that part of meal and store rest of falafels back in referigerator as soon as possible. This will increase its shelf life in refrigerator.

Time required to make falafels

Falafels required 1 to 2 hours to prepare from starting to finish. This time does not include soaking of chickpeas. It is better to soak chickpeas for overnight for best results or minimum 6 hours.

Taste

Traditional falafel has a slightly crunchy texture and a rich, savory, and grainy taste. In addition, it generally has a mildly spiced and herbaceous flavor consisting of garlic and delicious spices like cumin, coriander, parsley, and mint.

How to serve falafels?

Falafels are diversely served in every part of the world. You can eat falafels as it is with a drizzle of hummus or sour cream. It can also be stuffed in pitas with salads to make a wholesome meal. Also it can be filled in sandwiches to make a delicious lunch box recipe. Further, it can be served with salad for our weight watchers.

Tips

1. I recommend using chickpeas for this recipe. Do not use canned chick peas or garbanzo beans.

2. Please use fresh herbs like parsley, dill, mint leaves. If parsley is not found in some places, please feel free to use coriander leaves to replace parsley.

3. Please soak chickpeas or garbanzo beans overnight for best results. If overnight is not possible, minimum time to soak chickpeas is 6 hours.

4. You can always make a big batch of falafels and freezed it for a month and then use it as desired.

Video Recipe

Ingredients

## Falafel

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
- chickpeas - 2 cup
- Water - 5 cups
- parsley - 1 bunch
- Dill - 1/2 bunch
- mint - 1/2 bunch
- garlic - 1-2 cloves
- baking powder - 1 tsp
- all purpose flour (maida) - 2 tbsp
- salt - to taste
- black pepper - 1 tsp
- lemon juice - 2 tbsp
- spice powder - 3 tbsp
- oil - for frying

Spice powder

1
2
3
- coriander seeds - 2 tbsp
- cumin seeds - 2 tbsp
- chilli powder - 1 tsp

Instructions

Spice Powder - Preparation Steps

• Take coriander seeds, cumin seeds and chilli powder to a pan and roast it on low flame for 5 minutes.

• After roasting, turn the burner off and then add chilli powder to it. Grind spices to form a powder. Our spice powder is ready.

Falafel - Preparation Steps

• Take garbanzo beans or chickpeas and wash it. Soak for minimum for 6 hours or overnight preferrable.

• For fresh herbs, chop parsley, dill and mint leaves.

• Add soaked chickpeas to a big bowl. Then add some garlic cloves.

• Add chopped parsley, chopped mint, chopped dill leaves to the bowl.

• Add chickpeas mixture to a food processor and grind it to form a coarse paste.

• Add baking powder and all purpose flour (maida) to the mixture.

• Add salt, black pepper powder, lemon juice, spice powder to the mixture. Grind the mixture again in food processor again.

• The texture of the mixture should be coarse and rather a little chunky.

• Now let’s shape our falafel balls.

• First let’s shape falafel in round shape.

• Another great shape of falafel is a patty form. Refrigerate it for at least 1 to 2 hours.

• All falafels can be freezed in refrigerator for future use for a month.

Falafel - Frying/Baking Steps

• You can bake, fry or air fry the falafels. In Indian cooking, we use appe pan to make many recipes. We can also use appe pan to bake falafel as this will use very less oil.

• First Method demonstrated is using appe pan. Put all falafel balls in appe maker and drizzle oil on it. Further cook it for 10 minutes.

• Second Method demonstrated is frying in oil. Take a deep pan filled with oil. When oil is hot, add falafel balls and cook it for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

• Third Method demonstrated is using pan for falafel patties. Take a wide pan and drizzle oil on it. Add falafel patties on it and cook the patties on both sides until golden brown.

• Our perfectly baked, perfectly healthy, perfectly creamy, falafel is ready. Drizzle some hummus or sour cream on it. Enjoy this high protein meal with pita bread!