Lightly Spiced Chickpea Falafels – Vegan and Gluten Free

Lightly spiced Falafel full of fresh flavours

Falafel has been my own little personal mission for the past few weeks! I love eating them but for some reason I’ve always just had shop bought ones, I wanted this to change – and fast! Shop bought ones are convenient and low fat but don’t have that satisfying, wholesome home made feel to them.

My first batch were tasty but a little dry and the spices weren’t balanced (too much Cayenne!), the next ones were delicious but I had used coriander instead of Parsley which, although delicious, wasn’t quite what I was going for. The next few batches were pretty much all the same as these slightly tweaked, ultimate falafel!

I tried baking them as well as frying them and I much prefer the fried ones, they are slightly crispy on the outside and I feel it brings out the flavours better. You can fry them in a small amount of spray oil or a drizzle of olive oil so you are not adding too much fat.

Golden brown and crispy on the outside and fluffy and delicious on the inside

I’m one of those people who can’t help picking at food if it is in front of me, it’s become a bit of a running joke now! My finger dips in bowls, pots and jars on a regular basis, tidbits get popped in without glance and freshly baked falafels disappear before they’d even been taken off the baking tray.

Thats the wonderful yet dangerous thing about having delicious falafels hanging around the house, they are easy to snack on…. just try to remember how many you’ve had 🙂

Makes 12

1 Can Chickpeas
1 Red Onion
1 Bunch Parsley
3 Garlic Cloves
Drizzle Olive Oil
1 tblspn Gluten Free Flour such as gram/ chickpea flour
1 tspn Smoked Paprika
1/2 tspn Cayenne Pepper
1/2 tspn Ground Ginger
1/4 tspn Cinnamon
Splash Water

Peel and roughly chop the red onion and garlic.

Place the chickpeas, onion, parsley (stalks and all), garlic and oil into a blender and blitz until you have a crumb like consistency. Add the flour, spices anda small splash of water and mix well with a fork. You don’t want this mixture too wet so don’t add too much water, just a splash to help it bind!

Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan. Scoop around a tablespoon of mixture out at a time, roll into balls in your hands and place into the hot pan. They will be quite soft so you will probably end up with flat balls like in my top photos rather than perfectly round balls.

Fry until browned on the outside and hot in the middle. Serve hot or cold! Freeze them in portions to avoid snack attacks or test your will power and keep them in the fridge for up to 1 week.

To bake them: Roll into balls and place on to a non stick of greased baking tray, place in a preheated oven at 200c and bake for 35 minutes until golden brown on the outside. These will be a different texture from the fried ones but just as delicious.

NB: This recipe has been amended to help avoid the mixture becoming too soft. This should now be a perfect consistency 🙂

These falafel can be baked as well as fried!!

What foods do you find yourself snacking on? Are you a finger dipper??