This is the best falafel recipe (fried or baked or air fried)

Making homemade falafel is one of those things that may seem scary. But this recipe is:

• Easy!
• Tasty!
• Very much worth it

Being a Vitamix blog, we were unable to share this for a while. Why?

You cannot make falafel in a standard Vitamix blender container. Falafel is just one of those recipes where you need a food processor.

But now?

Now there is a Food Processor Attachment (review) it’s time to show you the best falafel recipe ever. We’re using the recipe from Tori Avey’s website. (We’ve simplified the description of the method and a few ingredients, but it’s otherwise unmodified.)

Go make it and if you’re up for it, serve it with some lentil soup and hummus!

It’s actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. If you’d like to see the process, here’s us making it as part of a 3 Middle Eastern Recipes video we made.

Some notes about making falafel

As purveyors of a healthy lifestyle brand, you should know that falafel isn’t healthy per se. But you can make healthy choices with it:

• Bake or air fry (instead of fry in oil)
• Use healthier flour (chickpea or almond or oat)
• Serve with veggies (like slaw or Jerusalem salad*)

Only a few of the listed spices are essential. Make sure you have garlic, cumin, and coriander.

Recipe

Falafel

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• Yield: about 36 falafel balls
• You're needed for: 45 minutes
• Until it's done: 12h 00min
• 5 out of 5 based on 2 user ratings
• Lenny Gale
• Dinner Tonight

This homemade, crispy falafel recipe is the best.

Cardamom, Chickpeas, Coriander, Cumin, Garlic, Onion, Parsley,

Ingredients:

• FALAFEL DOUGH
• dry chickpeas - 1 pound
• flour - 1 1/2 Tbsp. (any flour)
• baking powder - 1 tsp.
• small onion - chopped
• fresh parsley - about 1/4 cup fresh (curly parsley, not Italian)
• garlic - 4-6 cloves (to taste) --- minced from a jar works fine
• salt - 1 3/4 tsp
• cumin - 2 tsp
• coriander - 1 tsp, ground
• black pepper - a few cracks (to taste)
• cayenne pepper - 1/4 tsp
• cardamom - a couple pinches
• COOK
• vegetable oil (optional) - enough for frying; (we used avocado oil, but any vegetable oil works)

Instructions:

PREP (NIGHT BEFORE)

• Add chickpeas to bowl
• Cover in cold water
• Soak in refrigerator overnight

PREP (DAY OF)

• Drain and rinse chickpeas
• Chop onion

FOOD PROCESS

• Add drained and rinsed chickpeas
• Add all other ingredients besides oil
• Process for 20 seconds
• Scrape sides and mix
• Repeat until paste-like consistency — (smaller than quinoa but not homogenous like hummus)

CHILL

• Pour mixture into a bowl
• Mix with by hand to ensure it’s even
• Place in fridge for one hour

HEAT (the pan or oven!)

• Traditional: Fry
  • Fill skillet with an inch of oil
  • Heat slowly to about 375 degrees F
• Healthier: Air fry / bake
  • Pre heat to 375 degrees F

COOK

• Wet your hands
• Form falafel balls using about 2T of mixture
• Cook for 2-3 minutes per side
• Let cool (on paper towels if frying) for a couple minutes before serving

SERVE

They’re great with hummus or over rice or in a pita as a sandwich.

Useful tips for Falafel

You must use dry chick peas for this recipe. Canned won’t work, unfortunately. (But dried chickpeas, aka garbanzo beans, are easy to find these days — big box grocery stores all have them!) If you must use canned chick peas, Vitamix’s falafel recipe uses them, though I cannot attest to the recipe itself.

Look for “curly parsley” not “Italian parsley.”

Fresh garlic cloves are always best. But to save some time, we used minced garlic from a jar and it worked just fine.