The Fantastic Falafel!

Before you write falafels off as "dirty stinking hippie food", let's talk about how great they can be!

Falafels, or little balls of chickpeas either fried or baked, are incredibly tasty and full of protein, which makes them a great alternative to meat. Easy to make, healthy and versatile, the falafel is, or should be, a staple on any household menu!

Like anything, I am sure there are many ways to make a tasty falafel. And once you have that down, you can make a falafel and pita, falafel salad or falafel appetizers with a yummy dipping sauce. Here is what I whipped up the other night.

First of all, I got the idea to make some falafel goodness because I had a lot leftover hummus from a little dinner party the night before (made by chef and life superstar Lauren Howard). This was a chickpea and edamame hummus, a simple yet incredibly delicious spread made by mashing the chickpeas and edamame and adding garlic and lemon.

Since I had so much leftover, I figured I would just use that mixture and enhance it just a bit with new flavors to create the falafel balls. I got some naan on which to craft delicious falafel sandwiches.

To the hummus I added some bread crumbs, olive oil, finely diced onion, cumin, coriander, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. I would have added an egg to help it all stick together and remain moist, but I didn't have one. It all worked great, so no stress if there is an egg missing from the equation. I rolled the new mixture into little balls by hand and placed them on a baking sheet.

I baked them in a 350 degree oven. You can deep-fry them as well and of course they would be to die for, but the healthier way is definitely to bake them. They still get a nice crisp and crunch in the oven.

While those cooked, I made a crunchy slaw to serve on my falafel sandwich. I thinly sliced or grated red cabbage, green cabbage, salad turnips and carrots.

 

Then I made a little sauce. Traditionally, falafel sandwiches are served with a tahini (or sesame) based sauce. Sometimes I find the tahini sauce, while being super delicious, can also be rather dense. This time around I kept it super light with a cucumber yogurt sauce. To make the sauce, I eyeballed portions of the following:

• Plain greek yogurt 
• Sour Cream
• Lime juice (I used a whole lime)
• Grated cucumber (from my CSA, of course!)
• Garlic 
• Cilantro

This turned out to be sinfully delicious, I highly recommend it! Would be great to have a jar of this in the fridge to bust out for all sorts of dishes.

When the falafel balls looked and smelled done, I pulled them out of the oven.

And then the fun part.

I stared with some soft, warm naan (pita works great too, or any kind of flat bread really) and onto it I spread a healthy amount of hummus (I kept some of the original aside).

Then, some crisp CSA lettuce.

Followed by the slaw.

Then I drizzled a generous amount of the cucumber yogurt sauce and topped it with several falafel balls.

Finally, I topped it all off with more of the cucumber yogurt sauce, some sriracha and cilantro.

Boom! Truly fantastic, I must say. And yes, it might start out as a sandwich and turn into a salad and that's OK! These things can be messy but the flavor remains amazing!