Easter Mediterranean Couscous Salad

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This Mediterranean Couscous Salad will have everyone wanting seconds on your Easter table this year! Mixed with fresh herbs, dried fruits, and a lemon vinaigrette, this salad is sure to please.

I often have daydreams of what I would make when I have the space and money to make my own Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter dinners and my mind often goes wild haha! With Easter just around the corner, I often daydream about doing a Middle Eastern type of Easter dinner; I guess an homage to Passover as it will. A nice roasted lamb loin rubbed with mint and parsley and garlic; delicious pitas, yogurt sauce, hummus, green and bean salads, and finally this Easter Mediterranean Couscous Salad!

I made this couscous salad a couple of years ago for an Easter Dinner with my in-laws and it was a hit! As I was thinking about what kind of post I would do for this coming Easter, I had it come to me that I need to recreate this dish to give you guy’s options of what to make for this awesome dinner. One thing I love about Mediterranean cooking is that it is nice and light and fresh! So so so yummy.

One thing that you need to know about couscous is that they come in different varieties, which means that there are different cooking techniques for each of them. The one that we want to use for this dish is the Mediterranean couscous; this pasta is finer than its cousin Israeli couscous and that means the cooking technique and time is drastically different. With Mediterranean couscous, we’ll be working with a ¾:1 ratio.

One thing that I like to add to this vinaigrette is preserved lemons (I feel a separate post about these coming on). Basically you make preserved lemons by covering lemons that have been quartered into a homogenous mix of sugar and salt and letting it sit out for about a month and then refrigerating them afterwards. I love using preserved lemons because you’re able to use the peel which is often overlooked, except for the zesting that everyone knows how to do. Preserving lemons does leave the meat of the lemons useless because of all the salt that is absorbed into them BUT it is a cool way to use the rind! To use the preserved lemon, I basically filet the rind from the meat with a paring knife, rinse off the crazy salt and sugar taste, then I dice up the rind into small pieces and then add to the vinaigrette.

There ya have it, a nice and fresh dish to bring to Easter Dinner! You can eat this salad by itself or on top of a bed of your choice of lettuce, either way, it’s a hit.

You can honestly do this whole thing in less than 30 minutes and it will be a hit at the dinner table, promise promise! Let me know how you love this recipe and how everyone else loved it as well!!! Happy Easter everyone.

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Easter Couscous Salad

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Total Time

20 mins

 

Course: Side

Cuisine: American

Servings: 4 people

Author: ijustmakesandwiches

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup Mediterranean couscous
• 1 cup water
• 1 bag dried apricots
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 3 each persian cucumbers sliced into half moons
• 1 bunch Italian parsley
• 1 bunch mint
• 2 each lemons zested and juiced
• To taste EVOO
• To taste salt and pepper
• To taste honey

Instructions

1. Bring 1 cup of water to a boil in a pot with some salt. Once the water comes to a boil, add the couscous to the water, cover with a lid, and take the pot off of the heat. Let it sit for about 5 minutes or until the water is absorbed and the couscous volume has doubled.

2. Take the dried apricots and slice them relatively thin. Add the raisins and cucumbers to the bowl.

3. Roughly chop mint and parsley and add to the dried fruit.
4. Juice the two lemons, add salt and pepper, olive oil and honey,
5. Add cooled couscous to the bowl along with the vinaigrette and toss to combine.