This is the best simple, quick, & easy baked falafel recipe! It comes together in a few minutes using canned or dried chickpeas and is sure to delight any crowd! Homemade, healthy, gluten-free, authentic dinner or snack.
16ozchick peasIn the original recipe, I said that you would definitely want to use dried chick peas because they taste oh so much better. That requires soaking the dried peas overnight and then boiling them for an hour before beginning the falafels. Who has time for that? Not me, not at this stage of my life. So we use canned. You won't die, I promise.
2cupswaterIf you cooked your chick peas from dried, you should use the cooking liquid. Otherwise, drinking water will be fine.
Sauté the onions and garlic in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until they are crisp tender.
Combine everything except the water and breadcrumbs in your blender, reserving about half of the onion mixture and a few handfuls of chick peas in a small bowl.
Pulse the ingredients in the blender until the mixture is smooth. You may need to add water to thin the mixture enough that your blender can process it. Add a little water at a time. If you add too much water, you'll ruin your chick pea mixture.
Once the mixture is smooth and well blended, remove most of it from the blender. Add in the reserved onions, garlic, and chick peas and pulse until just barely chopped. Add to the smooth mixture. This will give the batter a nice texture.
Add breadcrumbs to the batter ¼ cup at a time, until the batter is thick enough to hold its shape when formed into a ball.
Using a cookie scoop, form golfball-sized mounds of dough in a shallow baking dish. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until deep golden brown.
Notes
When you make these falafels, you absolutely must make the tzatziki sauce that goes with them. Having them without is like eating plain dry spaghetti noodles. Maybe you like dry spaghetti noodles, but I promise that they're better with sauce. These are just like that.You will need a medium cookie scoop and a shallow baking dish to prepare this recipe.