I’ll be honest with you…I’m not a big fan of couscous. I made a salad last year with couscous and it was pretty good, but it’s certainly not an ingredient that I cook with regularly. So when I went in search of some culinary inspiration this week, and I saw Giada made a couscous salad, I figured now was a good time to try it again.
Giada has never failed me with her recipes. They are always interesting, full of flavor, and leave me anxious to cook the dish again. Between her awesome ravioli, citrus pesto pasta, and her lemon spaghetti recipes (the first 2 can be found on this blog), they are some of my favorite dishes I’ve made…ever.
And let me say that she has officially made me a fan of couscous. Usually you boil couscous in water or broth, let it absorb the liquid and then mix it with different ingredients and there’s your dish. But there was an extra step added in with this couscous salad…the couscous gets fried and essentially toasted, which gives it the missing flavor that in my opinion couscous always seems to lack. Then to this toasted couscous, a variety of Mediterranean flavors are added, and a really delicious and special salad is created.
The Mediterranean flavors come from basil (one of my favorite scents), Parmesan (you can’t go wrong with Parm), sun-dried tomatoes (not usually a favorite ingredient of mine), cucumbers (I so love the fresh flavor of them), and ricotta salata (or in case a block of Feta, because I couldn’t hunt down any ricotta salata).
Then there is a lemon/olive oil dressing that the couscous and ingredients are tossed in, and voila! This dish is delish and sadly my leftovers were gone in less than 24 hours, because it was that darned good.
Definitely try this salad. It’s easy, delicious, and perks up couscous, which is a boring (in my humble opinion) ingredient. Hope you enjoy it! Click here for the recipe and step by step instructions.
What I was cooking up a year ago: Beets, They’re What’s for Dinner (this week)
I was up to my elbows in fresh beets this time last year, and I tried out 3 fabulous and very different recipes. Probably the one I still think about the most often is Roasted Beets with Orange and Goat Cheese dish (yes, I know you’re shocked that my favorite involved goat cheese!).
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This looks good! I'm not surprised to see that you like toasted couscous,more than you like the untasted variety. I have the same preference. I'll have to give this recipe a try.