Air Fryer Reference
Falafel
protein · fresh
- Temperature
- 380 °F
- 193 °C
- Total time
- 14 min
- 12 patties
- Flip at
- 7 min
- flip once
- Internal temp
- —
- use visual cue
Doneness
Exterior is deep golden brown with a craggy crust; a halved patty shows a bright-green herbed interior that is no longer wet-looking but still moist.
Oil & seasoning
Generous mist on both sides before cooking — falafel is dry-formed (no egg or oil in the mix) and will not crisp without an external coating of fat.
Season with: already seasoned in the dough: cumin, coriander, garlic, parsley, cilantro, salt, serve with tahini sauce, pickled turnips, or yoghurt.
Watch out for
- Use chilled raw chickpeas (soaked overnight, drained, not cooked). Canned chickpeas hold too much moisture and the patties fall apart in the basket — this is the most common falafel-in-air-fryer failure mode.
- Chill the formed patties for 30 minutes before cooking. Warm dough loses its shape on contact with the basket and the patty flattens into a disc.
- Do not skip the oil mist. Dry-formed falafel without external oil cooks pale and crumbly — the air fryer cannot crisp a surface that has no fat to crisp.
- Form patties no thicker than ¾ inch. Thicker patties stay raw in the centre even after 18 minutes; thinner go past dry into chalky.