Quinoa Falafel with Tahini Sauce
Quinoa Falafel Recipe is baked crispy on the outside and moist inside. Serve with Tahini sauce in salads or pita. Freeze leftovers for busy weeknights.
Quinoa Falafel Recipe is baked crispy on the outside and moist inside. Serve with Tahini sauce in salads or pita. Freeze leftovers for busy weeknights.
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tsp coriander ground
- cooking spray (i use misto)
- 2 cups quinoa dry
- 2 oz cans chickpeas, drained & rinsed (i cook my own beans)*
- 1 medium onion cut into big chunks
- 8 large
- 2 cups parsley packed
- 3 1/2 tsp salt*
- 4 tsp cumin
- 4 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 cup tahini
- 1 garlic clove large**
- some falafel mixture
- Carbohydrate 7.83172951608647 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 4.61333557349663 g
- Fiber 1.29495336421479 g
- Protein 2.38064305856733 g
- Saturated Fat 0.630875605369778 g
- Serving Size 1 1 falafel (26g)
- Sodium 185.54730426666 mg
- Sugar 6.53677615187168 g
- Trans Fat 0.226087109828814 g
- Calories 80 calories
Step-by-step
- Cook quinoa as per package instructions and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F, line large baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.
- In the meanwhile, in a food processor (I used blender and it didn't work that well) add remaining Falafel ingredients (except quinoa and cooking spray) and blend until semi- smooth with some smaller chickpea chunks left.
- Transfer to a large bowl along with quinoa and mix with spatula until well combined.
- Reserve some mixture for the sauce.
- Using small scoop roll mixture into golf size balls and place on a baking sheet.
- Spray tops with cooking spray and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown and crispy, turning once.
- While falafel is baking make the sauce by processing Tahini Sauce ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
- I baked falafel in 2 batches, so while 1st one was baking I made the sauce and added Falafel mixture to it, just enough to make it thick.
- Honestly, I didn't measure.
- Serve falafel hot with salad or pita and sauce.
- Great for making sandwiches.
Will these fall apart entirely the moment they hit hot oil or a dry baking sheet? Traditional falafel relies on raw soaked chickpeas releasing starch to hold shape, but cooked beans and quinoa demand a binder like cornstarch to prevent structural collapse at 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Process the chickpea mixture until only semi-smooth, leaving visible legume fragments that maintain structural integrity during the thirty-minute bake time. Rolling golf-sized portions requires a firm hand to compact the damp grains before they enter the oven on unbleached parchment paper.Freezing cooked portions offers a reliable preservation method for long-term storage, provided the baked spheres cool completely on a wire rack first. Moisture accumulation inside a sealed container creates soggy exteriors, ruining the crisp shell established by the initial high-heat bake. Reheating frozen falafel requires returning them to a 400-degree oven for ten minutes to reactivate the outer oil and dry out any trapped condensation without burning the sesame elements in the tahini base.Second-day transformations involve crumbling chilled falafel into grain bowls or folding them into fresh flatbreads with heavy applications of acid-adjusted sauce. The interior moisture redistributes overnight, yielding a denser bite that handles mechanical pressure better than freshly baked batches. Cold storage dulls the distinct aromatics of ground coriander and cumin, requiring a splash of lemon juice in the accompanying paste to restore brightness.Operational hurdles in this preparation stem primarily from equipment choice, as vertical food processors outperform standard blenders when handling dense aromatics and cooked legumes. Blenders trap air pockets around large onion chunks, leaving unevenly sized pieces that disrupt rolling. Processing the aromatics separately before folding them into the grain mixture ensures uniform distribution and prevents pockets of raw onion from weakening the finished sphere.
