Homemade Couscous Salad - Quick & Delicious Side Dish

Summer calls for easy side dishes

Not only does the arrival of the summer heat mean I long for a lot of watermelons and juicy fruit, but it also means I want to spend less time in the very tiny kitchen because it's uncomfortable to stand there as well as it will heat up the living room. The heat can't properly leave our home when it's a very humid day, the very long hallway we use to get some air blown through the house is hotter and more humid than our home, so it's important to be careful using the oven and electric hob. I try to think of side dishes that I can prep fast and for several days to combine with other food so that we can limit our time using heat in the kitchen.

Quinoa

Quinoa used to be a favorite side dish until both my boyfriend and daughter refused to eat it. To me it didn't make sense to cook this anymore so now I decided to opt for couscous instead. We had a very nice couscous salad in the hotel we stayed at recently, only this couscous was a bit bigger, I've now learned that this was probably pearl couscous.

Super simple!

I didn't know that couscous was this much easier and faster to prepare than quinoa, otherwise, I'd have implemented this into our diet much sooner. I love a good side dish that will give you opportunities to add it to a meal without giving that too much thought upfront, especially if it has a short prep time. I used 1 cup of couscous and 1 cup of water (heated with some bio chicken broth), poured over the couscous, wait 10 minutes and mix it up a bit. Done. I swear it was the easiest thing ever.

Veggies

Now the question was what to add to the couscous salad because obviously you can go nuts with this or keep it very simple. I didn't remember the ingredients exactly in the hotel, and also didn't take a picture (oops) but decided to keep it simple and take it from there.

I added chopped cucumber, green paprika, cherry tomatoes (cut in 4 parts each), feta cubes (cut in 4 parts each), chopped red onion and

Of course, I added parsley as well, I love adding parsley to as many dishes as possible, haha. One task left: mix it up properly and add ingredients if desired:

We ate it as displayed above, and the second time we only added more feta cheese, which was very tasty with a nice steak:

And most importantly, we only had to quickly bake the steak as the couscous salad was already prepped a few days beforehand.

Do you prep meals or only when you are busy/because of the weather etc?