Falafel Bowls

If you’re looking for a Middle Eastern-inspired dish, falafel bowls are a must-try. With a handful of ingredients and (less than) 30 minutes, you’ll have a dish worth showing off to your family and friends! Here’s how easy is it to make this delicious recipe.

A Little Falafel History

If you go too deep into history, you’ll find an ongoing rivalry of who invented the falafel first. The Israelis claim it as one of their national dishes while the Palestinians will say it’s a distinct Arab specialty. Even with both of these claims, it’s said the falafel belongs to the Egyptians (just like much of everything else). But can this even be trusted?

Without giving you a full-fledged history lesson, I’ll just say this – there is one thing all falafels have in common, no matter where they’re from… they are good!

Health Benefits of Eating Falafel Bowls

The bed of mixed greens offers a healthy kick to the dish in and of itself. Packed with Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and iron, adding these to any dish creates an instant health booster. An added bonus to using greens is these leafy vegetables do not contain cholesterol and are naturally low in calories and sodium.

To help make this a vegetarian and vegan-friendly dish, chickpeas are used and just so happen to be a great source of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Pair it with the highly nutritious garlic and digestive promoting cumin and you have a recipe that super healthy for your body – inside out!

How to Make Falafel Bowls

To make this popular dish you’ll need:

• mixed greens
• dry chickpeas
• chickpea flour
• garlic
• red onion
• tomato
• oil
• spices

Start by putting the chopped onion, garlic cloves and parsley in a food processor and giving it a few pulses. Add in the dried chickpeas, cumin, salt and ground pepper and hit that pulse button again. This time you’ll want to blend the ingredients until you’ve reached a granulated texture.

Once you’ve reached the granulated texture, transfer the mixture into a bowl. Then, add the chickpea flour. Stir very well and let it rest for 5 minutes. After that, you should have a thick enough texture to form the falafel balls. If necessary, add one more tablespoon of chickpea flour to get a better consistency for making the balls. You should have enough to make up to 16 falafel balls.

Now it’s time to fry these babies up over medium heated oil. Cook them until they are golden brown on all sides. Use them to top a bed of green leaves – hence the name “falafel bowls” – and add the epic tahini sauce. The recipe for this is a combination of Greek yogurt, finely chopped cucumber, mayonnaise, dill weed, and salt and pepper to taste. Simply mix is all together and drizzle on top of your falafel bowls! Enjoy!

Psst… you can also try different variations of sauces. If you like tzatziki sauce, try your hand at making a homemade batch and drizzling it on top instead.