Falafel from the oven
Oven-baked falafel is a lower-calorie alternative for preparing the crispy chickpea balls. The falafel are of course prepared according to my family’s original recipe, but then baked in the oven instead of in vegetable oil.
Make your own falafel in the oven
I love falafel! These little crispy balls have been with me all my life and are one of my favorite dishes. They have to be crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside, otherwise I don’t like them.
That’s why I was skeptical when I wanted to cook with friends and the idea of roasting the falafel in the oven came up. After all, frying makes the coating evenly golden brown and so nice and crispy. They could understand the argument, but I could also understand their argument to save a few calories.
After a little discussion, we left the frying oil in the bottle and preheated the oven.
The right ingredients for oven falafel
For the original taste of falafel balls, it is important that you use fresh ingredients. But above all: use dried chickpeas!
The dried chickpeas must be soaked in fresh water for at least 12 hours. With cooked chickpeas (from the tin) you would not get such a chunky, creamy mixture, but only a mushy one. And you can’t make falafel for the oven from a mushy mixture.
I had soaked the chickpeas overnight so we could get started straight away. And with so many hands, the baking tray was quickly filled with chickpea balls.
Preparing falafel from the oven:
- Preparation: Soak the chickpeas and get the remaining ingredients.
- Wash, roughly chop and puree the ingredients.
- Shape the balls for the oven and flatten a little.
- Bake the falafel in the oven until crispy and then eat immediately.
Preparing oven falafel is really easy. You also save a few juicy calories and it doesn’t smell of frying oil! This is one of the things that convinced me even more to bake the chickpea balls in the oven until crispy.
Have fun rolling the balls and then enjoy your meal. If you like the recipe, please leave me a comment and a rating.
Recipe for falafel from the oven
Ingredients
- 250 g dried chickpeas
- 2 Garlic cloves
- 1 Onion
- 15 g Cilantro
- 15 g flat leaf parsley
- 5 Tablespoon Water
- 5 Tablespoon Olive oil
- 2 Teaspoon Cumin
- 1 Teaspoon Coriander seeds, ground
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon Baking powder
Zubereitung
- Leave the chickpeas to soak in water overnight (at least 12 hours).
- Peel the onion and garlic. Cut the onion into quarters.
- Strain the chickpeas in a sieve.
- Mix the chickpeas with the garlic, onion, coriander (fresh and ground), parsley, olive oil, cumin, baking powder, water and salt in a powerful blender or hand blender to a homogeneous mixture. The mixture should not be too fine, but should have a coarse sandy texture.
- Transfer the mixture to a bowl, press flat and place in the fridge for approx. 1 hour to infuse.
- Preheat the oven to 225° C fan.
- Shape the mixture into small balls and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. You can shape the balls by hand or use a falafel scoop. One ball should weigh approx. 40 g.
- Bake the falafel for approx. 20 minutes.
Notes
Nährwerte
What goes well with oven falafel?
Even if these falafel are not fried but prepared in the oven, you can serve them with the usual side dishes.
Falafel balls are often served as part of a mezze. You can therefore serve them with labneh, tabouleh and baba ghanoush.
Or you can wrap them in a Lebanese flatbread with pickled cucumber, tomatoes, parsley and tahini sauce. That’s how we did it and we also had a mezze because we couldn’t decide.
Are you hungry for more falafel recipes? Then try the beet falafel, Egyptian falafel or crispy falafel croutons for salads & co. Don’t have an oven at home? Then try falafel from the hot air fryer.
You can also follow me on Instagram for even more inspiration about Levante cuisine.
