Fantastic Homemade Falafel Recipe: Easy and Better Than Takeout

Crisp, herby, moist-tender falafel, tucked into a pita, swathed in yogurt or tahini is one of the great joys of, well, food in general. They’re high in protein, they’re freaking tasty, and they’re not all that hard to make. But there are a few tricks to getting their texture just right, and you need to fry them at the right temperature to avoid turning them into grease balls. For that, we’ll turn to thermometry, of course, and we’ll have a great recipe that you can start out with before launching into your own falafel-ing adventures. But first, let’s take a look at what we’re striving for so we can better understand how to get the results we want.

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Falafel goals

Falafel is a fritter eaten throughout the Eastern Mediterannean and through the Middle East that consists of ground legumes (often made of chickpeas, but made of fava beans in some cultures), spices, and herbs. They are often eaten stuffed into pita or other flat bread and served with various sauces (yogurt, tahini) and topped further with tomatoes, cucumbers, pickled veg, lettuce, etc.

Falafel should be light in texture, not dense and heavy; they should have a good proportion of herbs and be well-seasoned; and they should be fried enough that the crust on the outside becomes crips and crunchy, yet without the fritter becoming oil-logged.

Achieving falafel bliss—get those goals

Fry temps first

Look, this is a thermometry-in-cooking blog, right? So let’s get right to the meat of the matter for us: you have to fry falafel at the right temperature to get the crunchy, craggy exterior that we all crave so badly. Yes, there’s a spoiler up above telling you the oil fry temp, but you read down here because you value nuance and detail, so here it is. Falafel is a tenuous food to cook correctly because of the ingredients. We’ll go into it more below, but we’re using uncooked chickpeas for this, and undercooking them will give you that raw-bean flavor that no one is looking for. That means you can’t make falafels that are any bigger than about 2″ in their smallest dimension. It also means you can’t just crank the heat and rocket-fry them to a fast crunch—they need time in the hot oil for the insides to get up to temp before the outside starts resembling that one uncle’s Labor Day cookout burgers. (Note: remember to get that guy a Thermapen^® ONE for his birthday this year!)

Cooking at 350°F (177°C) gives us the heat we need to cook the inside and prevent oil-sogging while also crisping the outside slowly enough that everything gets done at the same time. Use your ChefAlarm with the included pot clip and set your low-temp alarm to 325°F (163°C) and high-temp alarm to 350°F (177°C). ChefAlarm will alert you if your oil temps drop too far (increase your stove heat, add fewer falafel in the next batch) or rise too high (add another fritter or two, lower the heat). Cook the falafel until they are deep dark golden brown, then drain them on a paper-towel-lined tray while you cook the rest of them. You’ll end up with a crunchy, crispy-loud, and craggy falafel that will add terrific texture to your sandwich.

Prepping the beans for optimal texture

As mentioned above, we used raw beans for this cook, and you should, for best results. Raw chickpeas (or fava beans) soaked in water are the traditional and best way to go. Cover them with plenty of water (they will double-plus in size) and leave them on the counter overnight then drain them and get frittering.

Then comes the grinding. Yes, you can use a food processor to grind your beans, but no, it’s not the very best option. I’ve made them that way plenty of times, but it’s far better to use a meat grinder. Mix the soaked legumes with coarsely-chopped herbs (LOTS of these) and onions and run them through a medium grind plate on your meat grinder, then mix that mess with salt and seasonings and run it through again. The result comes out perfectly ground with an enticing amount of chaos in the texture that helps create that beautiful crunch. And, as long as you don’t compress them too hard when forming them into fritters, the ground bean mix cooks up less dense, more cloud-like than other methods.

Final notes before the recipe

On baking powder in falafel

You’ll find many recipes for falafel that employ baking powder to help lighten the texture. Some of those recipes are pretty darn authentic, others not so much. If you grind your legumes this way and don’t compress them too much when shaping them, you won’t need baking powder. if you don’t have a grinder and you try it with a food processor but they come out too dense, maybe try throwing some in. A teaspoon or two per batch is where I’d start.

On shaping falafel

Falafel come in a variety of shapes. They are sometimes shaped like footballs, sometimes like large lentils—disks with edges tapered. You can even buy a little hand-held falafel scoop/press to make short straight-sided disks. Here, we opted for balls. However you form them, make sure they have a dimension that is 2″ or less for best internal cooking, and do not over-compact them!

Conclusion

This recipe (adapted from SeriousEats and Chef Billy Parisi) is so delicious, but it can also be just a jumping-off point. Use another bean and follow your flavor palate however you like. Use black beans and add some roasted green chili in place of some of the onion. Use black-eyed peas and spice them however you want. Use any legume with any culinary flavor profile you like and make falafel that fits with any meal. (Though you’ll be hard-pressed to beat the original!) Just be sure to follow the tips and temps we’ve provided above, and use your ChefAlarm to ensure the proper oil temp of 350°F (177°C). Oh, and if you presoaked the beans last night, you can actually whip this up quickly enough for a weeknight dinner tonight. And that is happy cooking.