This is my mom’s homemade falafel recipe and I learned how to make it from her over the years! Once you get the hang of it, it’s truly a very simple process. I believe that YOU can make authentic Syrian falafel. By the way, if you are able to enjoy pita bread, since it is gluten, feel free to wrap them up in pita instead! You would repeat the entire process but instead of building a salad bowl, you would add everything into the pita bread and wrap it up! So, let me show you how to make this recipe!
Yields: 2-3
Prep time: overnight
Total time: day of: 4 hours
This recipe is dairy free, gluten free, vegetarian, and vegan.
Ingredients:
Falafel
1. 2 cans of chickpeas OR 3 3/4 cups of fresh chickpeas (which is preferable)
2. ½ can of dry fava beans
3. 1 cup of finely chopped fresh parsley
4. 5 garlic cloves
5. ¼ cup of finely chopped fresh cilantro
6. Salt
7. 1 TSP of baking soda
8. Falafel spice mix (you can find this at an Arabic store, but if not you can skip this step)
Salad
1 bunch of lettuce
1 cup of pickled beets
1 green onion
1 cucumber
1 tomato
Tahini Sauce
½ cup of tahini
Squeeze of lemon
Salt
Water
Instructions:
1. First, soak the chickpeas and fava beans together for 24 hours in cold water.
2. Next, use a food processor to grind the chickpeas and fava beans. Repeat that step but now add the garlic cloves, cilantro, parsley, and salt (to your liking).
3. Add ½ TBSP of baking soda to let the falafel rise. Let the falafel blend sit for a couple of hours and then it will be ready for cooking.
4. Now, grab the falafel blend and start shaping them into the size of golf balls and press down lightly until they are semi-flat.
5. You can choose to bake them in the oven or fry them in canola oil. I baked them.
6. Preheat the oven to 400 and place your falafel balls onto a baking pan for 20 minutes and coat them with olive oil spray before you put them in.
7. While you’re waiting for the falafel to bake, chop up the veggies you’d like to have in your pita pocket or salad, like I made.
8. In my bowl I had: lettuce, tomato, pickled beets, green onion, and cucumber, which were finely diced.
9. Add the falafel balls on top of the salad once they are done.
10. Garnish with tahini sauce: ½ cup of tahini, a squeeze of lemon, salt to your liking, and add water until you have a creamier consistency.
