Homemade Falafel with Lemon Tzatziki

Share this recipe:

Entrees

This homemade falafel recipe delivers the real thing: shatteringly crispy outside, soft and herb-flecked inside, with a bright lemon tzatziki that makes the whole plate sing. The key is dried chickpeas soaked overnight. Wonderful Seedless Lemons go into the tzatziki as both juice and zest, brightening the yogurt sauce without a single seed to fish out.

Difficulty: Intermediate — The steps themselves are simple. The overnight chickpea soak requires planning ahead, and oil temperature control during frying is the one technique that separates crispy falafel from dense, greasy patties.

Overview

Falafel traces its origins to Egypt, where ta'ameya has been made from fava beans for centuries. As the dish spread through the Levant, chickpeas replaced fava beans in Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, and that chickpea version became the standard that reached Western street food culture by the twentieth century.

The most important technical decision in this recipe is dried chickpeas, not canned. Canned chickpeas are fully cooked and hold too much moisture; that moisture releases during frying, steaming the interior and preventing the exterior from crisping. Dried chickpeas soaked overnight retain far less moisture, so the exterior seals into a deep golden crust while the inside stays light and fluffy.

The lemon tzatziki in this recipe pulls from the Greek tradition of tzatziki: strained yogurt, grated cucumber, garlic, olive oil, and fresh dill. What makes this version different is lemon, added both as juice and zest. Lemon juice sharpens the yogurt's tang and lifts the cucumber. Lemon zest, which carries the aromatic oils from the peel, adds a layer of brightness that juice alone cannot deliver. The combination makes a tzatziki that is specifically designed to contrast with the richness of fried falafel, cool and bright against the hot, crispy exterior of each patty. Because Wonderful Seedless Lemons are naturally seedless, the juice and zest go directly into the yogurt without any seeds to pick out of a chilled sauce. Yogurt-based sauces are the worst possible place for a lemon seed to land: the sauce is cold, thick, and served without further heating, which means a seed that falls in stays there. Seedless lemons remove that problem entirely.

Wonderful Seedless Lemons are naturally seedless, Non-GMO Project Verified, and California-grown.

Ingredients

Falafel:

¾ lb. dried chickpeas (3 cups, soaked overnight)
1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 small shallot, roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves, roasted
1 tablespoon Italian breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
1 tablespoon fresh chopped dill
½ tablespoon ground cumin
½ tablespoon ground coriander
3 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Vegetable oil, for frying
Serving suggestions: Pita bread, chopped romaine lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, sliced red onion, and fresh dill, for serving

Lemon Tzatziki:

1 cup Greek yogurt
Juice from ½ Wonderful Seedless Lemon
½ cup finely grated cucumber
½ tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, grated
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ tablespoon chopped fresh dill
½ tablespoon zest from 1 Wonderful Seedless Lemon

Instructions

Pour the chickpeas into a large bowl filled with water; let the chickpeas soak overnight. They will double in size.
Drain and rinse the chickpeas and then pour them into a food processor (a blender works, too). Add the onion, shallot, roasted garlic, breadcrumbs, parsley, dill, cumin, coriander, salt, baking powder, and black pepper.
Pulse or blend all the ingredients together until a rough, coarse meal forms. Scrape the sides of the processor periodically and push the mixture down the sides. Process the mixture until the ingredients are combined and the texture is soft. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1–2 hours.
Roll the mixture into 2" balls.
Fill a large skillet with 1" of vegetable oil. When the oil is shiny and hot, fry the falafel in batches until they are golden brown on all sides. Remove from the skillet and place the falafel patties on a paper towel-lined plate to drain.
For the lemon tzatziki: In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients. Mix well. Cover and chill until ready to use.

**To serve:** Add romaine to a piece of pita bread, and then top it with falafel, tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onion. Drizzle with lemon tzatziki, if desired.

Optional Tips

Use dried chickpeas. This is not a preference; it is the recipe. Canned chickpeas are fully cooked and waterlogged. When processed into a falafel mixture, they release moisture during frying that prevents the exterior from crisping and causes the falafel to fall apart in the oil. Dried chickpeas, soaked overnight but not cooked, have a completely different moisture level. They produce the coarse, bindable texture that gives falafel its structure and its crust. Every other tip in this section is secondary to this one.

Roast the garlic before adding it to the mixture. Raw garlic processed into falafel has a sharp, harsh bite that dominates the other flavors. Roasting the garlic cloves in their skins at 400°F for 25–30 minutes (or in a small covered pan with a drizzle of olive oil) transforms them into something mellow, sweet, and almost caramelized. The garlic flavor reads as background warmth rather than front-and-center sharpness. Squeeze the roasted cloves out of their skins and add them directly to the food processor.

Fry one test falafel before committing to the full batch. Drop a single falafel into the hot oil before frying the rest. If it holds together and browns evenly, the mixture is ready. If it falls apart or spreads flat in the pan, the mixture needs more time in the refrigerator, or a small amount of additional breadcrumbs can be worked in to help it bind. A two-minute test saves an entire batch.

Control your oil temperature. Oil that is too cool produces greasy, heavy falafel. Oil that is too hot burns the outside before the inside cooks through. The 350–375°F range is the target. A thermometer is the most reliable way to stay in range. If you are frying without one, adjust the burner between batches: if the last batch browned too fast, lower the heat slightly and wait a minute before adding the next round.

‍Squeeze the cucumber for tzatziki with conviction. A gentle squeeze leaves too much water in the cucumber. Wring the grated cucumber hard, in multiple twists, until you can squeeze no more liquid out. The amount of liquid that comes out is usually surprising. The payoff is a thick, creamy tzatziki that does not pool into a watery puddle on the plate within minutes of serving.

Make the falafel ahead and freeze them. Fried falafel freezes beautifully. Cool the cooked falafel completely, arrange in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and freeze until solid, about two hours. Transfer to a zip-close bag. Reheat from frozen in a 375°F oven for 12–15 minutes, flipping once, until hot and re-crisped. The texture after reheating is nearly identical to freshly fried.

Warm your pita correctly. A cold pita pulled straight from the bag cracks and tears when you try to wrap it. Thirty seconds per side in a dry skillet over medium heat makes it warm, pliable, and slightly toasted at the edges. If you are warming multiple pitas at once, the foil-and-oven method works well: stack them, wrap tightly in foil, and heat at 350°F for five minutes.

Build the wrap in the right order. Romaine first, against the pita, acts as a barrier that keeps the tzatziki from soaking through immediately. Falafel on top of the lettuce, then tomatoes and cucumber, then tzatziki drizzled last. Assembling in this order keeps everything in place and ensures every bite has all the components.

Variations

Baked Falafel. Place rolled falafel on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush or spray generously with olive oil, including the sides. Bake at 400°F for 25–30 minutes, flipping once at the halfway mark. Baked falafel will not develop quite the same shatteringly crispy crust as fried, but they brown well with enough oil and come out substantially lighter in fat. The interior texture is nearly identical.

Air Fryer Falafel. Arrange the rolled falafel in a single layer in the air fryer basket, leaving space between each one. Spray with olive oil. Cook at 375°F for 15–18 minutes, shaking the basket gently halfway through. The circulating heat produces a crust closer to the fried version than the oven method does, with significantly less oil.

Egyptian Ta'ameya (Fava Bean Falafel). Substitute dried split fava beans, soaked overnight, for the chickpeas. Egyptian ta'ameya is traditionally seasoned with fresh cilantro and leek in addition to the parsley and dill, and the mixture is typically looser and lighter than chickpea falafel. The fried result is slightly more delicate in texture with an earthier, more herbal flavor. Serve with the same lemon tzatziki.

Spicy Harissa Falafel. Add one tablespoon of harissa paste to the food processor along with the other ingredients. Harissa adds heat, smokiness, and a deep red color to the falafel mixture without disrupting the texture. Serve with the lemon tzatziki to cool the heat, which the yogurt and seedless lemon do very effectively.

Falafel Bowl. Skip the pita entirely and serve the falafel over a base of herbed couscous or rice. Arrange sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onion alongside, and spoon the lemon tzatziki generously over everything. Add a handful of arugula and a drizzle of olive oil to finish. This format works well for meal prep: store the components separately and assemble each bowl fresh.

Mini Falafel Appetizer Platter. Roll the mixture into one-inch balls instead of two-inch ones and fry as directed, reducing the fry time by about one minute per batch. Arrange on a platter with a bowl of lemon tzatziki for dipping, alongside sliced cucumber rounds, cherry tomatoes, and warm pita triangles. Mini falafel with lemon tzatziki is one of the most effective make-ahead appetizers for entertaining, because the falafel can be fried hours ahead and reheated in the oven without losing texture.