Make Falafel Yourself – That’s How it Works

You can easily make delicious falafel yourself. We will show you which foods you need for the popular chickpea balls and also provide the basic recipe.

Make falafel yourself: list of ingredients

The food quantities are enough for 12 falafels. You need:

• 200 grams of dried chickpeas
• 100 grams of chickpea flour
• Half a red onion
• Two cloves of garlic
• An untreated lemon
• A little chili
• A bunch of coriander
• Half a bunch of parsley
• A tablespoon of cumin
• Half a tablespoon of salt
• You will also need a food processor to prepare the falafel mass.

Basic falafel recipe

Before you can start preparing falafel, the chickpeas must first be soaked. It is not compulsory to peel the chickpeas beforehand. Why it can still be useful, we will explain to you in another practical tip. Why do we explain in another post whether you have to peel chickpeas before eating them?

1. In a bowl, cover the chickpeas with plenty of water. They should soak for at least 12 hours. You then have to rinse them thoroughly under running water.
2. Squeeze the lemon and grate some of the peel. Also roughly chop the onion and peel the garlic cloves.
3. Halve the chili lengthways to remove the seeds. then cut the chili into pieces.
4. Next, prepare the herbs. Wash the parsley and cilantro thoroughly. Then pluck the leaves from the stems.
5. Now put all the ingredients, including the spices, the salt, and the cumin, in the food processor and puree the food to a creamy mass. You don’t have to puree it very finely, there may be a few small pieces.
6. Now form twelve balls of the same size from the falafel mixture.

Falafel: the preparation methods

You can prepare falafel in three different ways.

• In the oven: The balls will get a little crispier if you flatten them a little before spreading them out on the baking tray lined with baking paper and putting them in the oven. It should be preheated to 190 degrees. In total, the falafel was baked for 25 to 30 minutes. After 15 minutes turn the balls and brush with a little oil.
• In the pan: You should also form the falafel into balls for the pan and not into balls. The preparation is simple: heat some oil in a pan and fries the falafel for five minutes on each side until golden brown.
• In hot fat: Frying in hot fat is the traditional way of preparing falafel. To do this, heat one liter of vegetable oil with a high smoke point, such as rapeseed oil, in a saucepan to 180 degrees. Bake the falafel in it for three to four minutes and then drain on kitchen paper.