Falafel Bánh Mì is a super cool and delicious fusion of Vietnamese and Israeli cuisines. A Bánh Mì is a Vietnamese sandwich made with hollowed out toasted French bread, mayonnaise a protein (chicken or tofu usually), marinated vegetables (including carrots & daikon), cucumber, jalapeno and cilantro. By using a little bit of thinking outside the box, and making a few simple substitutions, the surprisingly and insanely delicious Falafel Bánh Mì was born.
Falafel Bánh Mì
Falafel Bánh Mì is a super cool and delicious fusion of Vietnamese and Israeli cuisines. A Bánh Mì is a Vietnamese sandwich made with hollowed out toasted French bread, mayonnaise a protein (chicken or tofu usually), marinated vegetables (including carrots & daikon), cucumber, jalapeno and cilantro. By using a little bit of thinking outside the box, and making a few simple substitutions, the surprisingly and insanely delicious Falafel Bánh Mì was born.
How Falafel Bánh Mì Came to Be
I’m tired. My brain is tired. My creativity is tired. After all the amazing wedding festivities for Dear Daughter and New Dear Son In Law, the fact that it’s cold and wintery (yes…it’s all a factor), and in general my body hates me, I’m using the restricted “E” word to describe my state of being. I’m exhausted.
Mazel tov to the newly married happy couple KIH!!!!
So… while I may be in a state, I still want to get fun and exciting recipes to you, my favorite readers. Towards that end, I asked Dear Social Media guy for help. He offered to try using AI to come up with some cool recipe concepts. It’s a well known fact that I’m all in for new and exciting technical stuff so it’s no shocker that I accepted, and surprisingly, the AI program he uses came up with some seriously creative recipe ideas… including Falafel Bánh Mì.
Making the Falafel Bánh Mì
As a good Ashkenazi Jewish girl, I had never heard of a Bánh Mì, and when the AI program spit out the concept of Falafel Bánh Mì I had to look up what Bánh Mì was. I found a great recipe on Allrecipes.com. They describe a Bánh Mì as a salad tucked into bread. Here’s the official Allrecipes description:“Vietnam has one signature sandwich: bánh mì. It is a tour de force comprised of light, crisp baguette-style bread often moistened by mayonnaise and containing pickled daikon and carrots, cucumber, cilantro, chili, and a featured protein element. For this recipe by metzstar, the featured protein is chicken, but you can put nearly any protein in the bánh mì framework and it’ll be delicious.”
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The Allrecipes.com Bahn Mi sandwich.
Changes to the original recipe
Once I understood the Bánh Mì recipe parameters, making a Falafel Bánh Mì didn’t seem all that outrageous.
The Falafel Bánh Mì protein
Generally a Bánh Mì contains chicken, fried eggs or tofu. It wasn’t a stretch to change that protein to falafel balls. I bought a package of falafel mix from Trader Joe’s and made a bunch of falafel balls. The leftovers can be frozen for a quick sandwich on another day. You could also use frozen, ready-made falafel balls to make this recipe even easier.
Homemade Falafel balls using the Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Falafel Mix. A cookie scoop really helped to make evenly sized falafel balls.
Making the recipe Gluten Free
This was a little bit more challenging. I was able to find frozen gluten free Udi’s French bread at Whole Foods. It worked really well, however keep in mind that you should eat the sandwhich fairly soon after making it as the bread has a tendency to harden if left out for too long.You can also make your own French bread, or if you’re lucky there may be other gluten free varieties on the market.As with a traditional Bánh Mì sandwich, you scoop out some of the bread to make space for the filling and lightly toast it.
Hollowed out Udi’s Gluten Free French Bread for a Falafel Bánh Mì Sandwich.
The pickled Falafel Bánh Mì vegetables
Often when you go to a traditional Israeli Falafel joint, there are lots of different pickled vegetables that are available to stuff into your falafel. While daikon isn’t usually one of them, when making the Fusion Bánh Mì recipe, including daikon wasn’t a stretch. I also substituted green onion for yellow onion – it worked well, and I doubled the original recipe quantity of vegetables used for pickling. The more the merrier and I was able to get four 6-inch sandwiches out of the recipe as a result.
Falafel Bánh Mì pickling vegetables.
Preparing the pickling liquid was fairly simple, with the big difference being rice vinegar in the Vietnamese solution rather than white in the traditional Israeli variety.
Falafel Bánh Mì pickled vegetables are marinated in a rice vinegar pickling solution rather than a white vinegar one.
Subsituting Supremely Spicy Hummus for Mayonnaise
Continuing with the whole fusion concept, I decided to substitute hummus for mayo. I mean, what’s a more Israeli spread than hummus??? (It’s a rhetorical question).Given that the sandwich has a little spiciness already, I used spicy hummus although you could really use a non-spicy one instead. Using a little bit of poetic license, I used a little bit of tahini dip instead of soy sauce on the sandwich. I also happen to love tahini on just about everything so given the opportunity to add it I jumped at the chance. Keep in mind that this is tahini sauce – not tahini paste. It’s tahini paste with added ingredients…kind of like you’d put on your falafel at a falafel stand.
A mandoline slicer really helps
I’m a big fan of the OXO Good Grips Simple Mandoline Slicer. It stores flat, is easy to adjust for different cutting widths as well as julienne, is dishwasher safe and the blade closes flat so you don’t cut yourself when storing. I am an affiliate of OXO for good reason. This is an awesome product – which is why I”m recommending it.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
I used it to julienne the daikon into beautiful matchstick pieces, for slicing the cucumber and could have used it to julienne the carrots as well. It made a time consuming task super speedy.
OXO Good Grips Simple Mandoline julienne daikon. Made the task simple and quick.
Here’s the recipe for Falafel Bánh Mì
As with nearly all the the Kosher Everyday recipes: You are the executive chef in your kitchen. If you’d like to make changes to this recipe feel free and let me know how it turns out!!
Falafel Bánh Mì
- Prep Time: 20 mintes
- Marinade Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 4 Falafel Bánh Mì Sandwiches 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Gluten Free
- Diet: Kosher
Description
Falafel Bánh Mì is a super cool and delicious fusion of Vietnamese and Israeli cuisines. A Bánh Mì is a Vietnamese sandwich made with hollowed out toasted French bread, mayonnaise a protein (chicken or tofu usually), marinated vegetables (including carrots & daikon), cucumber, jalapeno and cilantro. By using a little bit of thinking outside the box, and making a few simple substitutions, the surprisingly and insanely delicious Falafel Bánh Mì was born.
This recipe contains portions of the Bánh Mì recipe from Allrecipes.com
Ingredients
For the Pickled Vegetables
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 cup matchstick-cut carrots
- 1/2 cup matchstick-cut daikon radish
- 1/2 cup green onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
For the rest of the Falafel Bánh Mì
- 2 12-inch french breads (gluten-free)
- 1/2 cup (supremely spicy) hummus
- 12 cooked falafel balls
- 1/2 English cucumber, thinly sliced
- 1 small jalapeño pepper, cut into 1/16-inch-thick matchsticks
- 1/2 cup tahini sauce (not paste)
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
- Sandwich picks to finish
- Additional hummus and tahini sauce for serving
Instructions
For the Pickled Vegetables
- In a small saucepan, combine the rice vinegar, sugar and water. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Allow the liquid to cool.
- Place the daikon, carrot and green onion in the liquid and allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes.
For the rest of the Falafel Bánh Mì
- Slice the two french baguettes in half lengthwise. Pull out a line of the soft center, leaving a cavity for the fillings.
- Lightly toast halves the under the broiler for 2-3 minutes.
- Drain off the excess vinegar liquid after the vegetables have marinated.
To Assemble the Falafel Bánh Mì
- Spread two bottom halves of the French bread with hummus. Place 6 falafel balls on each of the hummus spread halves.
- Top with the marinated vegetables, cucumber and jalapeño. Drizzle tahini sauce over the jalapeño then top with the cilantro.
- Cover the fillings with the tops of the baguettes, then insert two sandich picks in each of the baguettes to hold them together.
- Cut each sandwich into two 6-inch sandwiches to serve.
- Serve with extra tahini sauce and hummus.
Equipment
Hast Bread Knife – use code KED15 for 15% off
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OXO Good Grips Simple Mandoline Slicer
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Sabra Supremely Spicy Hummus, 10 Oz Tub
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Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Falafel Mix 16 Ounces – PACK OF 4
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Udis Baguette Gluten Free French, 8.4 oz (frozen)
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I used my OXO mandoline to slice and julienne the vegetables. It made the task much easier.
You can make your falafel balls from scratch or buy them ready made.
The Trader Joe’s Falafel mix contains around 3 cups of mix which makes around 32 falafel balls. I made the whole box, but you can adjust accordingly.
It’s important to note that the tahini sauce specified in the recipe is not pure tahini paste. Tahini sauce is a combination of tahini paste with additional ingredients and is used as a sauce on traditional falafel in a pita.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 6-inch Falafel Bánh Mì Sandwich
- Calories: 283
- Sugar: 14.6 g
- Sodium: 267.2 mg
- Fat: 10.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.5 g
- Carbohydrates: 39.2 g
- Fiber: 2.4 g
- Protein: 9.5 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Here’s how I made it on Instagram @koshereveryday!
View this post on Instagram
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