Author Notes
Falafels are one of our favorite foods to eat. They're packed with amazing flavors and us vegetarians get a good amount of protein from them. My mom makes the falafel balls from scratch at home but I just bought the frozen kind from Trader Joe's or Costco. The thing that kept me from making them at home was the idea of frying them. I don't like frying things. I've had my own home for almost 4 years now and I have never fried anything in my kitchen. I always seek the alternative. Don't get me wrong, I occasionally indulge in fried food at restaurants (mainly, French Fries and Vegetable Samosas) but I don't like the act of frying, the smell that lingers or, the more obvious reason, the nutrition facts of fried food -- yikes! However, when I saw two fellow bloggers make baked falafels, I was inspired and immediately jumped on the bandwagon and attempted my own version. Here's a mash up of Recipris and Sprouted Kitchen's recipes. —themessimake.com
Ingredients
- Baked Falafels
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2 cups
canned garbanzo beans
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1/2
onion
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1/4 cup
toasted walnuts
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1 cup
parsley
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3
cloves of garlic
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1 teaspoon
crushed red pepper
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1 teaspoon
ground cumin
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1 teaspoon
salt (add more or less per your taste)
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1 teaspoon
baking soda
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1 teaspoon
lemon juice
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1 tablespoon
extra virgin olive oil
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5
pita pockets - cut in half
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1
large or 2 small tomatoes - sliced
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1
cucumber - sliced
- Tahini-Yogurt Sauce
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1 cup
plain non-fat greek yogurt
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2 tablespoons
tahini (sesame paste)
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1 tablespoon
tbsp Zahtar or 1 tbsp ground cumin
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1/4 teaspoon
salt
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A few turns of black pepper or 1 tsp crushed red pepper
Directions
- Baked Falafels
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Pre-heat the oven to 375 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
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In a food processor, pulse the ingredients in three steps in the following order: first -> toasted walnuts, second -> parsley + onion + garlic, third -> garbanzo beans + crushed red pepper + salt + baking soda + lemon juice + extra virgin olive oil. Pulse until everything is well incorporated but make sure you don't over do it or the mixture will become too mushy and difficult to work with. [Side note: I made the mistake of putting everything in the food processor at once - mainly for photographing purposes. It was a huge mistake. The ingredients didn't blend too well. I had to pick out the walnuts, chunky onion and garlic pieces and blend them separately. It just ended up taking more time than anticipated.]
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Make 2 inch balls using your hands or use a small ice cream scoop and scoop the mixture onto a parchment or aluminum foil lined baking sheet.
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Bake for 20 minutes, flipping them over halfway through.
- Tahini-Yogurt Sauce
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Put all ingredients in a blender and run the blender until everything is well incorporated. You can choose to whisk all the ingredients by hand if you want.
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Cover and refrigerate in a glass jar until you're ready to use it.
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Place sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and two falafel balls in a pita pocket. Drizzle with Tahini-Yogurt sauce [recipe below].
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