The Very Best Air Fryer Falafel

So why is our recipe the best? We tested the internet’s best falafel recipes to build the ultimate baked/air fried falafel recipe. All were huge letdowns, needing the foresight to soak dried chickpeas hours in advance or they came out disappointingly dry when tinned chickpeas were used. We wanted our recipe to answer the ‘what’s for dinner?’ question quickly, with less than 10 ingredients & without needing any preplanning. Enter the champion. Our recipe can be made in under 30 minutes with a tin of chickpeas, and simple pantry ingredients. The untraditional addition of chia seeds and grated zucchini not only keep the patties light and moist, but make them denser in nutrients. The best part is your kids won't even notice these additions- hidden veggie goodness for the win! The chia also helps to retain moisture long after these have cooled, making them great additions to a lunchbox. Goodbye dry and sad falafels! Serve the falafels in pitas with tahini, hummus and slaw, or make leftovers into a falafel salad with easy tahini sauce (recipe below if you need it), rocket and lemon. Falafels can be prepared in advance, then frozen uncooked. Once ready to cook, pop a few into the air fryer, and cook from frozen (add 2-3 minutes to the cook time).

Diet

Vegetarian

Cooking Technique

Air Fry

Keywords

14 servings, air fry, as needed, chopped, cook 15 min, crushed, cumin, featured, g tinned chickpeas, grated, healthy, iced, lemon juice, lunchbox, ml tahini, olive oil, peeled, prep 10 min, quick, raising flour, stem removed, tbsp chia seeds, tsp salt, vegan, vegetarian

Prep Time

10 min

Cook Time

15 min

Servings

14 Servings

Ingredients

14 oz. canned chickpeas
½ red onion, chopped
½ cup fresh parsley, stems removed
½ cup zucchini, grated
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. self raising flour
1 ½ tbsp. chia seeds
Olive oil, as needed
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
4 tsp. lemon juice
4 tbsp. tahini
3 ½ tbsp. water iced
Salt, as needed

Instructions

Place the chickpeas, red onion, fresh parsley, zucchini, ground cumin, salt, flour, and chia seeds into a food processor and pulse everything until the mixture just comes together and the chickpeas are in loose, bread crumb sized pieces (do not make a puree!). Scrape the sides of the mixer as needed, to help everything pulse evenly.
Once pulsed, scoop the mixture into 16 balls, and brush with olive oil.
Select Air Fry and set the temperature to 400°F / 205°C and the time to 10 minutes.
When prompted to Turn Food, flip the falafel and brush again with olive oil.
While the falafels cook, make the tahini sauce. Grate the garlic into a small bowl and pour over the lemon juice.
Mix in the tahini, and water. The mixture may look a little odd and split at first, but keep stirring and it will come together to be a smooth silky sauce.
Season the mixture with salt.
When the falafels have cooked, serve with the tahini sauce.