PALEO VEGETARIAN OPTION tasty easy courgette felafels vegan too

Lot’s of us know about the Paleo diet, but at first sight it’s heavy on the meat. Try my ‘almost’ paleo vegetarian option for you to try. Perfect alternative to deep fried felafels especially during Ramadan time.

Delicious, easy and quick, the whole family should like it and a great way to disguise courgettes too!

Paleo vegetarian option

My paleo vegetarian option can be made 2 ways, with tapioca flour or rice flour, so that’s a bit of cheating, but it’s still a great way of eating healthily and ‘almost’ paleo.

I first made these felafel with both of the flours, but subsequently just with the rice flour. Do remember rice flour, while not paleo is still gut friendly and should therefore be easy to digest.

Ingredients for the paleo vegetarian option

 Courgette and almond felafels 

To make 8 to 10 small cutlets you will need 

• 1 large, dark green courgette, I know weights and sizes vary
• 125 grams of almond flour (sometimes called almond meal)
• 1 teaspoon each of rice flour and tapioca flour or 2 teaspoons of one of the flours or 30 g of one flour*
• 1 inch of fresh grated ginger
• 1 smashed clove of garlic
•  salt/pepper to taste
• your favourite kind of chilli – Mine is  1/2 a teaspoon of 800 Degrees Italian chilli or some fresh chopped red chilli
• Grapeseed oil to fry your falafel

Of course if you had a thermomix you could make your own almond flour in seconds!

*If your mixture is too “wet” then just add a little bit more of your chosen flour, about a teaspoon or so till it absorbs any watery liquid.

What to do with the ingredients 

• Grate the courgette then tip into a bowl
• Add all the seasonings and chilli
• Pour in the almond flour
• Add the 2 teaspoons of either tapioca or rice flour or 1 teaspoon of each
• Mix all the ingredients together till they form a rough, slightly moist dough
• Shape with your hands into little fishcake type portions and lay on a plate or greased baking tray. You may want to have a bit of the rice or tapioca flour on a board whilst shaping
• Shallow fry till golden brown on both sides

Serve with whatever you like, a raw, grated beetroot salad, some sweet potato fries and coconut chutney would be my choice.  Or you could just serve with a roasted red pepper dip on the side. Here’s the entire recipe with the full video, about 8 minutes long.

Check out all the different flours you can get from Adils supermarket next to Mall of Emirates 

These flours are freshly milled and cost a fraction of the supermarket Gluten free flours I’ve seen!

• Bajra is a type of millet often used to make Indian rotis, naturally gluten free.
• Atta means flour in Hindi.
• Makkai means corn.

Does anyone know what Jowar means?

• Tapioca flour is a very common Indian flour and is called saboodana in Hindi in case you go to Adils and they don’t immediately understand tapioca.

There is also a branch of Adils in Karama near Bur Dubai. 

Most of the rotis/chappatis you’d get in an Indian restaurant would be made from wheat but makkai or corn flour rotis are common and often eaten with saag (spinach), especially in the winter months.

Trying to be healthy?

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