There is this fast food type restaurant that I’ve become obsessed with. Has anybody else ever been to Naf Naf? Their Falafel Pita is so good! For awhile now I’ve been wanting to make homemade falafel. Kara is not really into falafel so when I ran the idea by her she wasn’t very interested.
Then last week, my Mom and Winnie came to my work and visited me during lunch for my birthday. We drove to the mall, walked around for an hour and grabbed a quick lunch. There is a Mediterranean restaurant in the food court so I grabbed a side of falafel and a juice for lunch. And whaddya know…Winnie ate all my falafel. We had to go back to get her her own order!
I told Kara that Winnie liked falafel and therefore we should try making our own. She agreed! We love this recipe for oven baked falafel. Dipped in the roasted garlic Greek yogurt makes these an awesome snack. Winnie gobbled them right up and so did I! Or make them a meal by throwing falafel in a salad, pita or next to rice.
Here’s what you’ll need
Add the falafel ingredients to a food processor
And pulse! I actually made mine a little too smooth. Oops
Place falafel on a baking sheet
Mix together Greek yogurt and roasted garlic for the dipping sauce
Serve this in pita pockets, salads, with rice or alone!
Baked Falafel
Ingredients
For the Falafel:
- 2 14 oz cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 1 egg
- 4 cloves garlic
- 4 green onions, roughly chopped
- juice of 1 lemon
- handful fresh parsley, roughly chopped
- handful fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
- tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 smoked paprika
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
For the Dipping Sauce:
- 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
- 1 head garlic
- 1 tsp olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Remove the top of 1 head of garlic and place in foil. Drizzle with oil and seal in a foil packet. Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. You want the garlic to be very soft.
- In a food processor, combine chickpeas, garlic, green onion, egg, lemon juice, parsley, cilantro, olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin and paprika. Pulse a few times, just until crumbly. We pulsed ours too much.
- Add in half of the flour and half of the baking powder and pulse, just until combined. Repeat with the remaining flour and baking powder.
- Form the falafel mixture into heaping tablespoon sized balls and place on a baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes, until slightly golden and cooked through.
- While the falafel are baking, make the dipping sauce. Once the roasted garlic has cooled remove it from the skin. Just squeeze the garlic paste out. Stir the garlic paste into the Greek yogurt and serve with the baked falafel.