Falafel Gyros with Tzatziki
Make a delicious Greek-style falafel gyro with crispy homemade falafel balls, paired with chilled, tangy tzatziki salad, as well as some sweet tomatoes and piquant purple onion. Served it with pita bread for a perfect and easy lunch or dinner.
Servings 8 pitas
Calories 304kcal
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
Homemade Falafel
- 1+½ cup Chickpeas (dry not canned) dried
- 1 Onion (medium)
- 4 cloves Garlic
- 0.8 oz Fresh parsley
- 0.6 oz Fresh cilantro
- 1+½ tsp Ground cumin seeds
- 2 Tbsp Sesame seeds
- 1 tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Black pepper
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- ½ cup Cold water
Tzatziki
Other items
- 8 Pita bread use gluten-free
- 16 Cherry tomatoes
- ½ Purple onion
Instructions
How to make homemade falafel?
- Soak dry chickpeas in cold water overnight, but don’t cook them.
- Use a food processor and add chopped onion, garlic, fresh herbs, salt, black pepper, cumin, baking soda, and water.
- Pulse them until you get a creamy, grainy texture. Just pulse, not puree. If you overwork them, you’ll get a mush.
- Empty the food processor into a large mixing bowl. Add sesame seeds and mix them well.
- Chill the falafel mixture in the fridge for at least 1 hour before using a spoon or your palms to form balls out of the chilled mixture
- Preheat a large pan over medium heat. Add sunflower oil or coconut oil (not olive oil, but something that is high-heat resistant and suitable for deep frying).
- Gently place a couple of balls in the hot oil. Don’t drop it as hot oil can splash up and can cause blisters. Don’t overcrowd the pan as well.
- Fry them for approx. 5 minutes. Fried balls should be brown but not burnt and vibrant green in the middle. We usually place them on a paper towel to capture any excess oil.
How to make tzatziki?
- Wash the cucumber and use a large hole cheese grater and grate it. I never peel them and you don’t need to either.
- Take a large bowl and place the grated cucumber in it. Sprinkle it with salt and wait for 5-10 minutes for the cucumber to release water.
- When you see water, squeeze the grated cucumber in between your palms or use a cheese cloth, or kitchen towel. Squeeze it as hard as you can. The more moisture you live, your chances will be higher to end up with a runny sauce.
- Take a small bowl and add all sauce ingredients (yogurt, sour cream, white wine vinegar, olive oil, finely chopped garlic, dill, salt, and black pepper). Mix them well.
- Finally, add the sauce to the grated cucumber and mix again.
Assemble
- Warm the pita bread in a grill pan, in a skillet, or in the oven. We don't recommend using a microwave because it just makes it dry.
- Especially if you have large wraps, you can fill them like you would a tortilla wrap. Or you can cut the upper 1/3 and open it up to shape pita pockets.
- Depending on the size pita you can add 2-4 falafel balls, 2-3 Tablespoons of tzatziki, a couple of tomato pieces, and some purple onion slices. If you make pita pockets, we recommend scooping some tzatziki first, then the balls, and drizzling some more on top.
Video
[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id="HowZUgNz" upload-date="2022-09-20T17:43:48.000Z" name="Crispy Gluten-free Falafel" description="Is falafel gluten-free? There are 3 reasons why the answer is no: flour can be an ingredient, it is served with wheat flour-based pita bread, or cross-contaminated during deep frying. But if you want to be 100% sure, try our crispy gluten-free falafel recipe which uses no flour at all." player-type="default" override-embed="default"]