Chicken Skewers with Giant Couscous

This is a delightful fresh recipe, full of Mediterranean flavours and zing. Chicken skewers with giant couscous can be ready (believe it or not) in just 15 minutes and they taste phenomenal too!

For me, this is very much one of those wonderful meals to have in your rotation for warm days – days when you don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

This would also be brilliant if you’re having a barbecue – the skewers would work brilliantly over charcoal. The couscous requires just 6-8 minutes of cooking inside, and can be prepared in advance and eaten cold, if you like – so it makes an excellent side for your al fresco eating, or a fab meal prepped lunch.

The Ingredients

• Diced chicken breast – you will want chunks about 1.5 inches square to make sure it cooks nice and quickly. You could also use skinless and boneless chicken thigh.
• Ras el hanout– this spice mix brings all of the incredible flavour to the chicken. If you can’t find ras el hanout, it is possible to make your own at home.
• Olive oil – this is both for binding the spice mix to the chicken and cooking the chicken. You could use a good vegetable oil instead.
• Giant couscous or pearl couscous – in my opinion, giant couscous is a seriously special ingredient and – in a salad such as this – far superior to its grainy cousin. The texture is awesome, and it takes a similar amount of time to prepare as standard couscous.
• Balsamic vinegar – brings the zing! Do use balsamic if you can, because it brings that rich sweetness that other vinegars don’t have. If you don’t have any, use red wine vinegar but half the amount.
• Spring onions– fresh sliced spring or salad onions add a little bite to the salad.
• Pomegranate seeds – listen, you could use a pomegranate and remove the seeds yourself but you would have to be far more skilled than me to do it that way and still make this recipe in under 15 minutes! Pomegranates are one of the few fruits I’ll buy ready prepared for cooking.
• Feta – that salty creaminess works beautifully with the other ingredients here.
• Mint leaves – fresh mint leaves, not dried. You could swap with parsley.
• Salad leaves – use any that are available to you! Rocket, watercress, spinach, lettuce, anything you like for a bit of greenery on the side.

Cooking the Recipe

This fast and easy recipe is a weeknight winner. Here are my tips for making sure it works perfectly:

• If you want to prep in advance, you can do. Marinate the chicken, cover the bowl with clingfilm and pop in the fridge for up to 12 hours until you’re ready to cook (the flavours will only get better). Prepare the couscous salad, leave to cool and store in the fridge until ready to eat, again for up to 12 hours. Don’t reheat the couscous salad – eat it cold if you want to do it this way.
• Whether you cook this indoors on a griddle pan or on a barbecue, you will want to be certain that the meat is cooked through. The very centre of the meat, closest to the skewer, should be 165 degrees Fahrenheit or 73.9 degrees Celsius. If you are at all nervous, I’d recommend getting a meat thermometer so that you can check.
• If you want to create a chicken couscous salad with this, you could do that! When the chicken is cooked, slide it off the skewers, cut into bite size pieces and stir into the prepared couscous with the other ingredients.

Chicken Skewers with Giant Couscous

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Ready in 15 minutes, these griddled chicken skewers with a feta, pomegranate and mint couscous salad are totally delicious!

Harriet Young

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 15 minutes minutes

Serving Size 4 people

Ingredients

• 400 grams diced chicken breast
• 1 tablespoon ras-el-hanout
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 300 grams giant couscous
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 4 spring onions
• 80 grams pomegranate seeds
• 100 grams feta
• 1 handful mint leaves
• Salad leaves to serve

Instructions

• In a bowl, mix your chicken with the ras-el-hanout, half of the olive oil and a pinch of salt. When all of the chicken is coated, thread each piece onto wooden skewers (about 4-5 pieces to each skewer) then cook in a griddle pan or on a barbeque over a high heat for approximately 10 minutes (until cooked through), turning often.
• Meanwhile, pour the couscous into a saucepan with about 600ml boiling water. Cook for 6-8 minutes, until soft, then drain.
• Pour the cooked couscous into a large bowl and add the remaining olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sliced spring onions, pomegranate seeds, crumbled feta and chopped mint. Mix well, taste, and season if necessary.
• To serve, have a skewer each with a pile of couscous and a handful of salad leaves.

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More recipes using couscous:

• Couscous Stuffed Red Peppers
• Mediterranean Chicken Casserole with Couscous
• Lamb Chops with Jewelled Moroccan Couscous
• Chorizo and Scallops with Vegetable Couscous
• Chorizo and Sugar Snap Pea Giant Couscous