Falafel is a delicious patty of chickpeas, spices, and fresh herbs served with pita or flatbread and salad. I am very excited to share with you my simple recipe to make baked falafel at home.
Falafel are a delicious Middle Eastern street food. It’s difficult to say exactly which country they come from as so many places fight over its invention. Falafel are indeed the national dish of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.
What we know for sure is that falafel are a worldwide popular dish. I would eat them everyday if I had an infinite supply!
I can’t remember the first time I had falafel, but it was definitely a dish I discovered when I moved to London thanks to the many Middle Eastern restaurants in the city.
Since my first mouthful, I have been completely addicted. I tried to replicate them at home many times with poor results. I then sat down and made a lot of research and tested different recipes over the years.
I am very proud to share with you my own version. This is one of the core recipes of my kitchen and really not sure why I haven’t posted it yet.
You can either bake or deep fry the falafel, I bake them as I don’t like to fry food. I find it quite intense as I always burn myself – I am so clumsy. Baking the falafels allow you to make a batch in just 30 minutes and the taste is not too dissimilar from the fried ones if you follow my advice:
- Do not use canned or cooked chickpeas, only make falafel with dried ones. This is an imperative, you will never manage to bake falafels if you start from cooked chickpeas. They are way too soft and the mixture will not hold together.
- When you’ll read my recipe, you’ll be like ‘oh my! The quantity of oil is insane’. Yep it’s a lot of oil but it’s essential to give falafels their authentic flavour plus we are using extra-virgin olive oil, it’s good for you!
- If you are serious about falafel, don’t shy away from the garlic and spices. Food is more important than kisses hehe
- Chill the dough in the fridge for at least an hour before making the patties, again this will help the mixture to hold together.
- Serve your homemade falafel with a pickled vegetable, and if you really don’t like pickles get at least lots of tomatoes. An acidic ingredient will make the falafel’s flavour boom.
- A last, heartfelt advice: make more than you think you’ll eat. You can easily freeze them and have a great meal ready in no time.
Falafel are always a great idea, let me know if you give my recipe a try 😊
Homemade baked falafel
Course: Mains, SnacksDifficulty: Easy5
servings25
minutes30
minutes13
minutesFalafel is a delicious patty of chickpeas, spices, and fresh herbs served with pita or flatbread and salad. I am very excited to share with you my simple recipe to make baked falafel at home.
Ingredients
- PART 1
350 g dried chickpeas
120 g fresh chopped parsley leaves
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 or 4 garlic cloves depending how much you like garlic
1 small red onion
80 g extra-virgin olive oil
1 heaped tsp fine sea salt
1 heaped tsp black pepper
- PART 2
1/2 tsp baking powder
20 g sesame seeds
5 big spoons of extra-virgin olive oil (around 30 g)
Method
- The day before: soak the chickpeas in water for at least 12 hours
- Mix all the PART 1 ingredients with a food processor. This will take around 1 – 2 minutes.
- Chill the mix for at least one hour (you can also do this the day before)
- Add the baking powder to the mixture and form small balls of around 1.5 cm diameter each using your hands or with the help of two spoons. Sprinkle each ball with sesame seeds.
- Place your falafel on the baking tin and coat each ball with a generous amount of oil
- Bake for 25 minutes at 180 C and flip halfway so your falafel is super crispy.
- Serve hot wrapped in pita of flatbread with salad and hummus
Notes
- You can easily refrigerate falafel before you bake them. Simply pop them in the oven for 35 minutes when you are ready for a snack.
