Oven Baked Falafel
Depending on the size of your food processor, you may need to do this in batches! My 2.1 litre food processor could only handle half of the below at a time!
Serve with Tarator Sauce.
Ingredients
2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked overnight (or at least for 8 hours)
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
2/3 cup tightly-packed spinach (Can use frozen which has been thawed with water squeezed out! Or, use approx. 120g shredded courgette/zucchini, with water squeezed out.)
2 teaspoons olive oil
3/4 to 1 cup chickpea flour (Gram Flour, Besan) – depending on how wet the mixture is
3 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoons ground coriander
1 handful fresh coriander leaves, plus extra to serve
Salt, to taste
Directions
Check the size of your food processor, you may need to divide the recipe into batches. My 2.1 litre food processor could only handle half of the recipe at a time.
Place the dried chickpeas in a large bowl and cover with lots of water. You’ll want to allow enough room for them to double in size. Soak overnight, or at least 8 hours, then rinse and drain.
Chop the spinach, or if using frozen, thaw it and squeeze all the water out. If using zucchini, shred it and squeeze the water out. Place chickpeas, spinach (or zucchini), 3/4 cups of chickpea flour and the rest of the ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture is well-blended. You don’t want large chunks of chickpea and onion, but you don’t want to overmix it and turn the entire thing into a smooth paste. You’ll want it to look like large couscous, feeling slightly wet and just about holding together when you form it into a ball. If it’s too wet, add the remaining 1/4 cup of chickpea flour.
Let the mixture rest in the fridge, covered, for at least an hour, or overnight so it firms up. Do not skip this step!
Once ready to cook the falafel, grease 2 baking trays with olive oil, and form the batter into firmly packed disks with wet hands (or use a falafel making tool). You want 2 tablespoons of mixture for each falafel, as a rough guide. Leave a few centimetres between each one on your baking tray. If desired, brush the tops with olive oil. Bake in an oven preheated to 180C for 20 – 25 minutes, flipping after 15 minutes to ensure all sides are evenly browned.
These can be made in advance, kept in the fridge and then reheated in the oven at 180C for 10 minutes or so.
Alternately, these can be frozen and thawed to eat later in a packed lunch, or reheated from frozen in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes. We liked these for our work lunches!
My Notes
Next time I’ll try adding 4 teaspoons of lemon juice to the mixture. Some people also add 1 teaspoon of baking powder to the mixture to make it lighter but I thought it was fine without it.
I could have added powdered cardamon, or black pepper, or ground caraway, or turmeric — ideas to try next time. Maybe I’ll roll the falafel in sesame seeds before baking. 💡
