Falafel 2

I got these frozen falafel. A serving is listed as 5 pieces, 190 cal. I've made Falafel from scratch in the past and it's good, but seemed way easier! Also it was quite good!

The instructions are for pan frying, or in the oven, but both require a lot of time to cook the frozen falafel through.

I got this pita bread from the supermarket. A serving is half a pita, 90 cal, which seems about right.

Had I thought about it I would have gotten arugula which is recommended in this post but I just used spinach and red onion in the pita.

The sauce option options were yogurt dill sauce, cucumber yogurt sauce, tzatziki, or humus.

Cucumber yogurt sauce

I decided to go with the cucumber yogurt sauce:

• 1/8 cup cucumber, seeded and minced. About a 1" piece.
• 1 tbsp. fresh mint, minced
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 small clove of garlic, minced
• lemon juice
• salt
• freshly ground white pepper

Falafel

I cooked a serving of 5 pieces in the sous vide, 45 minutes at 150°F. This seemed much faster and less likely to overcook the outside than pan frying from frozen, but this out to be entirely unnecessary, see below.

Finished in a sauté pan in olive oil until lightly browned which only took a few minutes.

This probably isn't completely necessary, but did work. It requires caution because the sous vide cooked falafel are very fragile.

Also only 4 fit in my pita.

Serving

Cut the pita bread. Add the cucumber yogurt sauce. Add the spinach and onions. Add the falafel.

Serve!

I had a little yogurt sauce left over so I didn't need quite that much, but that wouldn't have been enough for two halves.

I cut the rest of the package in pitas in half, individually wrapped them, and froze.

2025-02-11

I tried making the falafel according to the package directions in a sauté pan with 1/4" of oil. Preheat 4 minutes, cook 4 minutes on each side from frozen.

While it requires more active pan frying and a little more oil, it works very well.