Quick cook falafels

• Preparation 40 Minutes
• Cooking Time 5 Minutes
• Makes 12-16

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One of my favourite snacks or quick lunch fixes is falafels, this is funny as until I went vegan my lip curled at the thought of them. Anything containing chickpeas to me sounded horrendous.  A year later I am now a complete convert, and they have become a huge part of my diet.

For me, these flavour packed crispy nuggets wrapped in a warm pitta blanket, with a crisp and lashing of humus is food heaven. Other times I like them freshly cooked and drizzled with some Tahini dressing, accompanied by a crunchy salad and greens.

I do prefer my falafels cooked from dried chickpeas but there are times when the need is there but the freezer is bare. This is where tinned chickpeas are great. We don’t always have 12 hours to soak the dry version or even remember to. There are normally 6 cans of tin chickpeas stored in my pantry at all times. I get kind of itchy and OCD when I am down to just 2.

For the basic quick falafel, this recipe is my favourite blend of herbs and spices.

I do have the recipe for the recipe using dry chickpeas which I will post below

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different spices and vegetables such as beetroot, broad bean or sweet potato or using spices such as chilli flakes or red pepper flakes.

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Ingredients

• 1 400g tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 tbsp ground flax-seed (optional)
• Small bunch of fresh parsley leaves
• half an onion diced
• 3 cloves of garlic finely sliced
• 1/2 grated courgette
• 1 grated carrot
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
• 2 tbsps of flour I use gram (chickpea flour) other flours will be fine.
• salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp tahini or lemon juice.

Method

1. Place the drained and rinsed chickpeas in a food processor and just briefly pulse until coarsely ground.
2. Add half of the courgette and carrot plus the rest of the ingredients and process until you have a paste consistency and then put in a bowl. Then add the rest of the grated carrot and courgette and stir in.
3. These can be shaped and cooked straight away but I tend to put the mixture into the refrigerator for half an hour but this is only because I find them easier to shape.
4. Take the mixture and roll into balls then flatten into rounds. Here the choice is yours about what size you would like. Mine are usually 1 tbsp of mixture for each falafel.
5. Heat some oil in a nonstick frying pan and cook for 2 minutes each side, longer if they are bigger.
6. Place them on kitchen paper to drain excess oil and then enjoy it.

Related recipes

Oven baked falafels

Ras el Hanout

Moroccan spiced roasted carrot hummus

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If you like this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on twitter as @veganalchemist1 or my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thegfveganalchemist I love seeing your versions of my recipes. Or I would love to hear your comments