These fabulous falafel make a delicious weekend night treat. Pop them in a wholemeal pitta with some salad, yogurt spiked with grated garlic, jalapenos and tahini mixed with a little hot water and you have total genius. The best ones I have ever tasted were in Amman, Jordan in 2025. Rather than the ball shape we get here most often, theirs was like little patties so I decided to emulate the shape; they fit much better in a pitta that way anyway! These can easily be made vegan, just use vegan yogurt.
You’ll need:
1 can of chickpeas, or equivalent in ones that you have rehydrated and cooked yourself (I did mine in my Ninja multi on the pressure cooker setting).
1/2 onion, finely chopped.
A large bunch of green herbs - I used what was in my garden, parsley, mint, fresh oregano. Coriander works really well too.
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped.
5 teaspoons of flour, I used Dove’s farm pasta /pizza flour as that was all I had at the time.
Spice mix: make it your own, I used chilli powder, cumin, paprika, about 2/3 of a teaspoon of each.
Salt and black pepper to season.
Oil to air fry/bake.
How to:
Pop everything except the oil in a food processor and blitz until it looks quite chunky. Then add drizzles of water, slowly, and the flour will bind with this to create a mixture that you can easily roll into balls and then flatten out into little patties like in the picture (mine were about 3.5cm in diameter).
Drizzle with oil and air fry on 180c for 15-20 mins, keep checking them. They will also oven bake really well although the air frying does give that crispy texture you can’t achieve by baking. Pop them in a wholemeal pitta with some salad, yogurt spiked with grated garlic, jalapenos and tahini mixed with a little hot water.
