My favorite part about making falafels at home is that you can get as creative about them as you want - you can bake them, pan fry them, or deep fry them for a little fun. You can eat them in a pita or on top of a homemade salad. And most importantly of all - you can make that tahini sauce exactly to your taste. Homemade falafels are surprisingly easy to make as long as you follow a few key steps! All you need is a food processor to make the batter and you can make the dough from there.
My first little secret is before you add the chickpeas in, blend together the onions, garlic, and greens and add in all the spices in a food processor.
Now, this is the most important step (luckily it's an easy one): Pat your chickpeas dry with a paper towel if you are using canned chickpeas and try and remove as much excess moisture as you can, so that when we pan fry them they don't fall apart!
Once you add in the chickpeas you'll get a mixture that looks like what you see in the bowl. You can add flour at this point and mix it through, so that it absorbs the extra moisture and makes for a crispy falafel! Make sure you add enough flour so that the batter isn't sticky. GF alternatives works equivalently well here.
Form patties with your hands just like this and get your oil ready for frying! To make forming the patties easier, add a little olive oil to your hands to make sure the batter doesn't stick to it. You'll find this makes the process a lot smoother (literally!).
And finally, you'll end up with these golden, crispy, beautiful falafels that are ready to be plated and served. I suggest eating these right away rather than storing them, because they are so crispy, warm and flavorful!
As I mentioned, you can throw the falafel on top of a bed of greens or have it in whole wheat pita. You can use regular tahini sauce or choose to use my Green Tahini recipe to add a little more spice and depth of flavor!