Great family-friendly vegan and super nutritious recipe for oven-baked falafels! Falafels are the classic vegetarian patties and probably my favourite for meatless burgers and wraps!
I have skipped 1-2 of the ingredients in the video to keep the video short, but the recipe is pretty easy, as most of the recipes on the website are and the best thing about it is that you can make the falafels baked in the oven rather than fried! There is nothing wrong with gently pan-fried falafels in extra virgin olive oil but trust me, the oven-baked method is much easier, less messy and requires far less oil!
Making falafels is actually really simple as you just put all the ingredients in a food processor, blend and the falafel mixture is ready! You need to brush each of the patties with olive oil so that they get that brown/golden colour. You also need to ensure your oven is preheated and HOT before you put them to bake. This way they turn out lovely, crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.
Let’s face it, we love everything that is made of chickpeas, well at least most of us do. A lot of falafel recipes include quite a lot of flour but I managed to reduce this to 2 tbsp of flour and I got the perfect soft and sticky mixture for patties, full of nutritious ingredients only and most importantly a lot of chickpeas! As you probably know they are an amazing plant-based source of protein – 20 % protein! In addition, there are two full cups of green stuff in this recipe as well, the parsley and coriander (cilantro) add Vitamin A, C & K and lots of antioxidants!
My favourite wrap is made of falafels, hummus (more chickpeas), tomatoes, cucumbers and some lettuce. For a bit of a kick add some onions and chillies if you are into that.
The recipe for these delicious healthy little patties is further below, lastly here is a picture from the falafel photo shoot on instagram from a different perspective! Make sure to follow me there for more “behind-the-scenes” pictures!
Ingredients
- 1 onion
- 3 cups cooked chickpeas (2 x 400g cans/ 240g drained)
- 1 cup fresh parsley
- 1 cup fresh coriander (cilantro)
- 2-3 garlic cloves to taste
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 2 tbsp whole-wheat flour
- 1 tbsp olive oil + extra for baking
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250°C / 480° F.
- In a food processor, blend the onion until chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients, leaving out the flour and olive oil. Blend again until you get a smooth mixture, but not too smooth to avoid turning it into a puree.
- Add the flour and olive oil and blend these with the mixture as well.
- With your hands form the patties to the desired size and place each one on a large sheet of non-stick baking paper. Make sure to spray/brush the paper with olive oil before you place them on it.
- Once all the patties are done, spray them all with olive oil sprayer or brush each one with olive oil to ensure they turn out brown and crispy in the oven.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden.
