Favourite Greek falafel recipe (2024)

What are the ingredients for falafel?

There’s a large variety of falafel recipes out there. But all include one key ingredient: cooked chickpeas. Alongside that they also have crushed garlic cloves and fresh chopped herbs such as parsley and sometimes mint.

How to make Greek falafels

This Greek falafel recipe is so simple and uses a few fresh ingredients. It’s even suitable for vegans. You blend together the cooked chickpeas, herbs, spring onions and parsley in a food processor. Then you empty it into a bowl and add some mild spices along with some flour and mix until you get quite a dense ‘dough’.

Shape the dough into balls or even into fun shapes like stars and hearts, using cookie cutters.

Fry them in about 1 cm of oil. (We’ve tried oven-baking them but they don’t end up as crunchy and can be quite dry so we much preferred the lightly fried version). And then serve them up with hummus, yogurt or a herby tzatziki.

Can you make falafel without a food processor?

We’ve made ours using a food processor as it blends the ingredients really thoroughly so we would recommend using one.

If you’re not using a food processor we would strongly advise you take the time to finely dice all the ingredients and to mash the chick peas. You want to end up with a nice dense dough at the end that has all the ingredients well distributed.

Can I use canned chickpeas for falafel?

We’ve made this recipe using both canned chickpeas and freshly cooked chickpeas. We prefer the taste of chickpeas that are cooked from scratch. These do take a long time to boil so we often make them in advance. But canned chickpeas work very well too. You may need to adjust the quantity of flour that you add, until you get the right dough consistency.

Crispy Greek falafel recipe

Ingredients

• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 15 grams fresh parsley leaves
• 550 grams cooked chick peas (about 3 ⅓ cups)
• 1 teaspoon mild paprika
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• ¼ teaspoon mixed spice
• 2 tablespoons self-raising flour
• 240 mls vegetable oil (1 cup)

Instructions

1. Blend together the spring onions, garlic and parsley leaves in a food processor.
2. Add in the chickpeas and blend again.
3. Empty the mixture into a mixing bowl and add in the paprika, turmeric and mixed spice along with 2 tablespoons self-raising flour.
4. Mix it with your hands until it’s well combined.
5. Take a ball of the mixture and press it together with your hands until it sticks together. The mixture should no longer be crumbly but instead it should be very dense.
6. Place the ball on a floured, flat working surface and push it down with the palm of your hand to flatten it.
7. Take a cookie cutter and cut out your chosen shape for your falafel.You can make these falafels in any shape you like, or simply keep them as round balls or patties too.
8. Place the cut-out falafel on a plate to one side. Continue with the next ball until you’ve shaped all the dough.
9. Pour 240mls (1 cup) vegetable oil into a frying pan. The oil should be about 1 cm deep in the pan so adjust the amount of oil to your pan size.
10. Heat it on a medium heat until the oil is hot.
11. Using cooking tongs pick up each falafel and place it in the oil. Continue adding them until the pan is full, with some space between each one.
12. Cook for 3 minutes on each side, turning them over with the tongs, until completely golden and cooked through.
13. Remove onto a plate lined with kitchen roll and move onto the next batch until you’ve cooked all your falafels.
14. Serve up with some creamy hummus or Greek yogurt.

1

2

3

4

5

6