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  • ร—
    Eat Love Eat ยป Recipes ยป Lunch

    Sesame Sweet Potato Falafels with Green Tahini Sauce

    Published: Feb 28, 2018, Last Modified: October 22, 2021, By Sasha Hooper ยท This post may contain affiliate links.

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    These Sesame Sweet Potato Falafels are made with chickpeas, sweet potato and toasted sesame oil. They're perfect for a packed lunch!

    A bowl of sweet potato falafel with avocado and a sauce on top.

    I got the idea to make these Sesame Sweet Potato Falafels in my head a little while ago and they just sounded so good, so naturally I had to make them ASAP! I wanted the flavours to be super simple, as I find things so often get over-complicated. Especially in my brain. And I knew I wanted a green sauce to drizzle over the top of them, since I'm all about contrast. And here they are! You got to check out our Sweet Potato Kale Salad with Maple Mustard Dressing too, it's delish!

    Can you tell I'm eager for spring here with all this green?! We're currently in the grips of the 'Beast from the East' (who even comes up with these names?!) here and it's freezing and I'm 100% over it. Well maybe only 99% over it. The snow is really pretty and I do quite like the novelty of feeling like I'm inside a snow globe! But come on now, I need warmth!

    A baking sheet with sweet potato falafel on a marble surface.

    The beetroot falafels I made last year have been a huge hit (I still love that recipe!) and so it was high time I made another falafel recipe really, wasn't it? These ones are made slightly differently from that recipe - here the sweet potatoes are cooked first, whereas everything was raw in the beetroot falafels. They're still really simple to make though and the flavour is just so good!

    The uncooked falafel mixture can be a little sticky to work with so I recommend letting them chill in the fridge for an hour or two if you can, but they work perfectly well even if you don't, you just might need a little more patience! Rolling these out makes for perfect kitchen therapy though, if you ask me ๐Ÿ™‚

    A bowl with arugula, sweet potato falafel and avocado.

    These Sesame Sweet Potato Falafels have a bit of an Asian twist to them, with the main flavour being toasted sesame (why is toasted sesame oil so irresistible?!) backed up by garlic, ginger and a good hit of chilli. All the good stuff! I then made a creamy green tahini sauce to go with them, with Greek yoghurt and avocado for creaminess and tahini to back up the sesame even more.

    This makes for a perfect lunch along with some salad leaves (I like rocket here) and avocado. The falafels are really filling so this is a really satisfying meal by itself but feel free to add whatever you fancy! Make a batch of these and keep them in the fridge so you have lunch sorted for a few days - or freeze them! I love the feeling of knowing that I've got something really delicious tucked away in the freezer ready to pull out for a zero effort meal. So good when I have that sinking feeling of dread late at night when I realise I have nothing planned for my work lunch the next day... thank you past-self! I surely can't be the only one who has this problem?

    A bowl with sweet potato falafel and jar of sauce behind.
    A broken open falafel in a bowl with a fork.

    ๐Ÿ“– Recipe

    A bowl of sweet potato falafel with avocado and a sauce on top.

    Sesame Sweet Potato Falafels

    These sweet potato falafels are simple to make and great to make ahead for lunches on the go!
    5 from 2 votes
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe โญ๏ธ Rate Recipe
    Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes
    Cook Time: 40 minutes minutes
    0 minutes minutes
    Total Time: 1 hour hour
    Servings: 40 falafels
    Author: Sasha Hooper

    Equipment

    • Food Processor
    • Baking Sheet

    Ingredients 

    • 450 g (1 pound) sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
    • 2 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed, divided
    • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
    • 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
    • 1 red chilli, finely chopped
    • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
    • 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds, plus more to coat
    • ยฝ cup gram (chickpea) flour
    • 1 ยฝ teaspoons fine sea salt

    Green Tahini Sauce

    • 125 g (ยฝ cup) Greek yoghurt
    • 1 tablespoon tahini
    • 10 g (ยฝ cup) coriander leaves
    • ยฝ green chilli
    • 2 tablespoons lime juice, roughly ยฝ a lime
    • ยผ avocado
    • ยฝ teaspoon maple syrup

    Instructions

    • Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Add the sweet potato chunks and bring back to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes or so until tender. Drain and leave to cool slightly.
      450 g (1 pound) sweet potatoes
    • Place 1 can of chickpeas into the bowl of a food processor. Blitz until finely chopped. Add the sweet potato chunks and continue to blitz until smooth. Transfer to a bowl.
      2 400g can chickpeas
    • Add the remaining can of chickpeas to the food processor and pulse until roughly chopped. Add these to the bowl of sweet potatoes.
    • To the bowl of sweet potatoes and chickpeas, add the garlic, ginger, chilli, toasted sesame oil, gram flour and salt. Stir well to combine. At this point you can absolutely roll these out and bake them but I would recommend letting them chill out in the fridge for a while, as the mixture will be easier to work with. 
      2 cloves garlic, 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, 1 red chilli, 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, ยฝ cup gram (chickpea) flour, 1 ยฝ teaspoons fine sea salt
    • Roll the mixture into small balls (roughly tablespoonfuls). Roll in toasted sesame seeds, if liked, and set on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Bake for 30 minutes until golden and firm to the touch. Serve with green tahini sauce, rocket, avocado and anything else you fancy!
      2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

    Green Tahini Sauce

    • Place all of the ingredients into a blender along with a good pinch of sea salt. Blitz until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. 
      125 g (ยฝ cup) Greek yoghurt, 1 tablespoon tahini, 10 g (ยฝ cup) coriander leaves, ยฝ green chilli, 2 tablespoons lime juice, ยผ avocado, ยฝ teaspoon maple syrup
    Prevent your screen from going dark

    Nutrition

    Serving: 1falafel | Calories: 43kcal | Carbohydrates: 5.7g | Protein: 1.6g | Fat: 1.7g | Saturated Fat: 0.3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.6g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.6g | Cholesterol: 0.4mg | Sodium: 150.7mg | Potassium: 89.3mg | Fiber: 1.4g | Sugar: 0.8g | Vitamin A: 81.9IU | Vitamin C: 3.8mg | Calcium: 15.2mg | Iron: 0.4mg
    Course Dinner, Lunch, Main Course
    Cuisine Fusion, Middle Eastern
    Did you make this recipe?Leave a comment below with how you got on and don't forget to give the recipe a rating โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ. You can also tag @eatloveeats on Instagram - we love to see your creations!
    « Creamy Chicken Pasta Bake
    Healthy Granola with Dates and Ginger »
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    Comments

    1. mohit bajoria says

      December 05, 2022 at 6:10 am

      This recipe looks delicious. Just wanted to clarify you use cooked chickpeas and not dried, as in normal falafel batter you generally use dried peas

      Reply
      • Sasha Hooper says

        December 05, 2022 at 2:07 pm

        Yes we used canned, although it isn't traditional as those are dried chickpeas that are soaked and falafels fried. We do this in this recipe as we are baking them.

        Reply
    2. nicole (thespicetrain.com) says

      January 10, 2019 at 1:54 pm

      This looks gorgeous, I love the color and the green tahini sauce sounds amazing. Thanks for sharing! ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
      • Sasha says

        January 19, 2019 at 1:42 pm

        Thanks so much Nicole! The sauce is super tasty ๐Ÿ™‚

        Reply
    3. CM says

      August 06, 2018 at 2:24 am

      5 stars
      Made these tonight and I can verify that the sauce is delicious! I accidentally used more sweet potato than the recipe calls for so I'll have to try again while paying more attention. I'll definitely be making the sauce again.

      Reply
      • Sasha says

        August 09, 2018 at 8:44 pm

        I'm so glad you love the sauce - thanks so much for taking the time to let me know! ๐Ÿ™‚ I hope you love the falafel just as much when you try them again.

        Reply
    4. cakespy says

      March 02, 2018 at 12:28 pm

      These falafels sound incredible...and that green tahini, I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from putting it on EVERYTHING!

      Reply
      • Sasha says

        March 02, 2018 at 8:23 pm

        Thanks so much!

        Reply
    5 from 2 votes (1 rating without comment)

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