Tomato Quinoa Falafels without chickpeas

I’m feeling extremely queasy today, and I honestly don’t really know why. I think it has something to do with low blood pressure and crazy weather outside. I swear we’ve been jumping from downright pouring outside to sunniest, cloud-free sky 5x within the past 2 hours. It’s annoying, really, and I blame the weather for making me feel so tired and out of it.

I have had a semi-productive day, somehow nothing’s coming to me easily today. I’m seriously debating jumping into the bath tub before going for dinner with some friends tonight, but I fear it’ll make my blood pressure even lower. So, I’m resigning to sharing a recipe with you and then seeing how I feel after that.

This is a recipe I first made two weeks ago, after making my quinoa-stuffed, glutenfree tortilla wraps  I already shared with you. I had some quinoa left-over and didn’t have anything “filling” to add to one of the salads I usually make myself for lunch, so I figured I’d try making a patty out of the quinoa. It ended up surprisingly yummy, so yummy that a colleague who tried them the next day asked me for the recipe. Those are the moments I usually decide a recipe is worth repeating, perfecting and photographing.

These are perfect on their own, for dipping in some guacamole or yogurt-dip, or on top of a salad. I am very sure they’d be perfect in a wrap, or mixed in some pasta as a sub for meatballs, too. Their tomato flavor makes them quite versatile and somehow “italian”.

I didn’t add chickpeas to these falafels because I don’t react to them too well. I have my hummus once a week, but any more and I have a breakout or tummy problems. Or both. And nobody wants that. So, I added white beans to these – but you can totally sub those for chickpeas to get a more traditional “falafel” flavor.

Tomato Quinoa Falafel

• Servings: 20
• Print

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 cup of white beans
• 1/2 cup of sundried tomatoes
• 2 Tbs. tomato purée
• 1 Tbs. dried basil (or 1 bunch freshly chopped)
• 1-2 tsp. of salt
• 1-2 tsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 2 eggs (or flax eggs for vegan version)
• 2-3 Tbs. corn flour
• oil, for baking

Procedure:

1. Cook the quinoa in double the amount of water, adding some salt to the water.

2. After it’s fully cooked and cooled down a bit, add to a blender with all of the ingredients, excepting the corn flour and oil.

3. Take out of the blender, and mix with the corn flour until you have a slightly sticky dough – not too runny, though. It should be possible to roll them in your hands if you wet them a bit.

4. Heat 1 Tbs. of oil in a pan, then roll out the dough into small balls.

5. Place about 5 balls in the pan at a time and cook them on each side until they are brown.

6. Take out and serve immediately, or store in the fridge to enjoy cold. They freeze well and firm up quite a bit if stored in the fridge.

Depending on how large you make your dough balls, it will take longer or shorter until you’re done baking them all. However, the recipe above makes quite a large batch. If you are making these for yourself, I highly suggest halving the recipe, as you’ll still get around 10 falafels, which is enough for 2 meals in my case.

If you want to add a bit of spiceness, feel free to add a fresh chili to the blender.

These quinoa balls are wonderfully filling without weighing you down, which is really how I like all my food to be. I love how flavorful they are, too!

Depending on how long you blend them, they will be chunky with bits of sundried tomatoes to bite on or completely smooth. I prefer mine a little chunky, but that’s just personal preference.

Alright, I’ll finish off this blog post by telling you I, sadly, still feel queasy if not nauteous. It has nothing to do with this recipe, though, trust me. I am quite glad I have some of these stuck in my freezer for next week, as they are perfect for adding to salads or enjoying on their own!