Easiest Way to Cook Delicious Couscous & French Beans Salad with Chickpeas & Cucumber

Couscous & French Beans Salad with Chickpeas & Cucumber. I'm borrowing the name from Pasta Primavera which, like this recipe, takes advantage of fresh, seasonal, green produce. When looking for a weeknight meal, opt for couscous, a quick-cooking grain. Choose any one of these delicious couscous recipes for a light and dynamic meal.

Couscous is a North African dish made from tiny steamed balls of semolina flour. Though we think of it and cook it as a grain, couscous is actually a type of pasta. It's one of the easiest, fastest, most versatile side dishes you can make. You can have Couscous & French Beans Salad with Chickpeas & Cucumber using 11 ingredients and 3 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Couscous & French Beans Salad with Chickpeas & Cucumber

1. You need 1/2 cup of couscous.
2. It's 1/2 cup of black chickpeas, boiled.
3. It's 1 cup of french beans, finely chopped & boiled al dente.
4. Prepare 1 of small cucumber, chopped into small pieces.
5. It's to taste of salt.
6. It's 1/2 tsp. of pepper powder.
7. It's 1-2 tbsp. of olive oil.
8. You need 1/2 tsp. of mustard seeds.
9. Prepare 1 of dry red chilly.
10. Prepare 2 of fresh red chilies, chopped.
11. Prepare 2-3 tbsp. of feta cheese, crumbled.

And it's especially wonderful with stews or saucy main dishes. Couscous Tabbouleh with Fresh Mint & Feta Using couscous instead of bulgur for tabbouleh really speeds up the process of making this colorful salad. Other quick-cooking grains, such as barley or quinoa, also work well. —Elodie Rosinovsky, Brighton, Massachusetts Couscous is a side-dish staple in North African cuisines. It's basically tiny balls of pasta made from a kind of flour called semolina.

Couscous & French Beans Salad with Chickpeas & Cucumber instructions

1. Add 3/4 cup water to the couscous and keep it covered for 10 minutes. Fluff it up with a fork. In a bowl, combine couscous, beans, chickpeas, cucumber, salt and pepper..
2. Heat oil in a pan and temper with the red chilly and mustard seeds. Allow it to crackle. Switch off the flame..
3. Pour this tempering on the prepared salad and top it up with the fresh red chilies and crumbled feta cheese. Serve immediately for a light dinner / lunch..

In North America, the couscous you'll find at the grocery. Couscous is amazingly easy to cook. Couscous is made from semolina wheat and tastes nutty and sweet when cooked. The couscous that most of us pick up at the local grocery store is actually instant couscous, which is couscous that has already been steamed and dried for us. Couscous has to be one of the most underrated ingredients in the kitchen.