A falafel plate is a great way to turn falafel into an easy dinner. Use this mezze-style falafel platter recipe as a guide. And swap and change ingredients and portions to your heart's content.
Servings4
Ingredients
- 16 falafel balls*
- 1 cup tahini sauce
- 1 cup hummus
Sumac onions
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced in half-moons
- 1 tablespoon sumac
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- a pinch of ground salt
Za'atar labneh balls
- 8 plain labneh balls*
- 2 tablespoon za'atar
To serve
- 1 cup cubed feta cheese
- 1 cup mixed small tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes
- ½ English cucumber, sliced into rounds
- ½ cup olives, green or black
- extra-virgin olive oil
- salt flakes and black pepper
- a few sprigs of mint and parsley, as garnish
- zhoug, or hot sauce
- 4 pita bread*, or small flatbreads
Instructions
- If you're making them from scratch, make the falafel, tahini sauce and lemon hummus. You can do this a day ahead.
Sumac onions
- Finely slice onions and leave them to soak in cold water for at least 10 minutes (up to 30 minutes) while you prepare your vegetables.
- Thoroughly drain the onions, then mix them with sumac, lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Use your fingers to massage the sumac into the onions. Set aside for another 20 minutes.
Za'atar labneh balls
- Place the za'atar on a small plate and roll each labneh ball in the za'atar to coat.
Assemble the falafel plate
- Use a large serving plate, wooden board or individual serving plates.
- Put the falafel dipping sauce (tahini sauce or tzatziki) in a small bowl and place it in the centre of the serving plate.
- Swirl the hummus directly on the plate, or use another small bowl if you're using a wooden serving board.
- Arrange the falafel, sumac onions, labneh balls, feta cubes, tomatoes, cucumber and olives snuggly around the falafel sauce.
- Drizzle the veggies with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Garnish the falafel plate with a few sprigs of fresh herbs.
- Serve with pita bread and zhoug (or hot sauce) on the side.
Notes
- I use 16 small falafel balls (less than an ounce / about 25 grams each) from this Middle Eastern falafel recipe when I make a falafel plate for four. If you plan to make your own falafel, you should start a day ahead and place dried chickpeas in water to soak overnight. Or use store-bought falafel.
- Buy ready-made labneh balls. Or, roll fresh labneh into balls (about a heaped tablespoon each) with lightly oiled hands. Place the balls in the fridge to set for at least 2 hours before coating them with the za'atar. See how to make labneh balls.
- I always buy olives with the pip. Either use an olive pitter to remove the pips or warn diners that the olives still have pips.
- Skip the pita bread if you want to make it a gluten-free falafel salad platter.
- You can build individual plates if you don't have a large enough serving board.
- The prep time in the recipe card does not include making homemade falafel mixture, hummus, tahini sauce and labneh.