My recipe for Hemp Falafel with Sunflower Seed Dip is vegan, gluten free, and nut free. It is enjoyable for everyone with salad, tomato, and avocado in a pita bread. If you want to stay away from bread carbs, use one or two big salad leafs as a wrap instead. Works beautifully!
I’m pretty fortunate: I can eat everything – no allergies, no intolerances. At least as far as I know. Sadly, that is not true for everyone. Several people in my family, for example, have nut allergies.
If I just think about how often I use nut butters in my recipes, I get a bit scared about the fact that these kind of things might catch me, eventually. So, when I was thinking about a new falafel recipe that I had wanted to experiment with for some time already, I realized that it was supposed to come with a peanut butter dip.
This appeared to be the ideal case to test, what life without nuts would hold for me.
Of course, there is always a solution. As I found out fairly quickly, a butter made from sunflower seeds is recommended as a nut-free replacement for the likes of peanut or cashew butter. Intrigued, I set out to go shopping, determined to find it and give it a try.
As it turned out, it was a bit more difficult to find than I anticipated (I had to check two stores ? ) but eventually was successful. Back home, I opened the jar and was pleasantly surprised by the aroma of the sunflower seed paste.
As for the texture, it was not as smooth as I had expected. Maybe that’s unique to this brand though.
The Sunflower Seed Dip is quickly prepared: take the paste, a bit of tamari, lemon juice, and maple syrup, whisk it all together and you are done. If your sunflower seed paste is as hard as mine was, use some water and/or more tamari to thin the dip.
For the Hemp Falafel, I went for the traditional chickpeas (of course), olive oil, lemon juice, together with the not-so-traditional addition of nutritional yeast and hemp protein powder.
More spices and herbs, all blended give you an astonishing dough that one can easily form into falafel balls. Roll them in hemp seeds and you have gorgeously looking falafel balls ready for baking.
Those Hemp Falafel with Sunflower Seed Dip can be enjoyed with salad, tomato, and avocado in a pita bread. If you want to stay away from bread carbs, use one or two big salad leafs as a wrap instead. Works beautifully!
Hemp Falafel with Sunflower Seed Dip
Ingredients
For the Sunflower Seed Dressing:
- 3 Tbs sunflower seed butter
- 2 Tbs tamari sauce
- 1 Tbs maple syrup
- 1 Tbs lemon juice (optional)
- water to thin
For the Hemp Falafel:
- 2 14 oz (800 g) cans chickpeas
- 1 Tbs olive oil
- 1 Tbs lemon juice
- 2 Tbs hemp protein powder (optional)
- 4-5 Tbs hemp seeds
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 Tbs curry powder
- 2 Tbs nutritional yeast
- salt, pepper to taste
- fresh herbs
Instructions
For the Sunflower Seed Dressing:
- Mix all ingredients well together. If the dressing is too thick, use some water to thin.
For the Hemp Falafel:
- Preheat oven at 400ºF (200ºC).
- Transfer the chickpeas to a blender and pulse briefly. Then add all other ingredients except for the hemp seeds and process until you have a smooth paste.
- Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. From the falafel dough, form about 15 balls. Roll them in the hemp seeds to cover, then transfer to the baking sheet.
- Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Turn occasionally so that the brown evenly.
