I remember the first time I ate falafel. I had never had anything like it and immediately fell in love with Middle Eastern cuisine. The ground cumin, coriander, garlic and other spices as well as the hummus with the falafel was incredible. It opened up a whole new world of flavors for me. My version of falafel patties is not authentic but they are inspired by the flavors I love and they are indeed delicious. These are oil free, healthy and so filling. I hope you will enjoy them as much as my family does.
Necessity is the mother of invention they say and that is how this recipe evolved. I came up with the recipe back in 2011 when our daughter was living in Spain and going to college there. The cost of groceries were so expensive and she couldn’t always find the ingredients she was looking for. She emailed me and asked me to come up with some recipes with food items that she could easily find that were inexpensive on a college students budget. She said she could buy canned garbanzo beans cheaply and asked me to come up with something as a main dish using them. We weren’t eating plant based back then but I did immediately think about falafel patties.
Being health conscious even back then I knew we wanted to avoid frying them so I decided to make falafel patties. I tinkered around until I came up with this recipe. It was easy, inexpensive and used common ingredients. My original recipe had parsley in it but our daughter couldn’t find fresh parsley so she subbed cilantro. When I tried cilantro instead of parsley I liked them even better. It was a win – win!
We made this video a couple years ago and it was set aside and forgotten about. I recently made this meal again and remembered the video and we decided we would finally get it published. Hence the short hair in the video!
I love to serve this meal to company. It is naturally vegan, plant based so there is no expectation for it to be anything other than that. It is also so easy to make this meal oil free. It’s a favorite family meal as well. Perfect for hot summer days, but truth be told I can eat this all year long. I always double this recipe and freeze some for future meal. I go ahead and brown the patties before freezing. They can be reheated in the microwave, air fryer or a nonstick skillet.
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