Greek Style Pearl Couscous Chickpea Salad

I’m Greek and I might be biased, but if there’s one salad I always return back to, it’s the Greek Salad. I really love the traditional Greek salad and that’s the reason I have dedicated a whole post, completely, to the Greek salad. You can read this Greek salad recipe post here. Today though, I’m not making a traditional Greek salad, but more of a “Greek style” salad. I have used pearl couscous and chickpeas to make this salad more satisfying, and I ate half of the salad for lunch today. It was so delicious and I just felt like I needed to share this with you all. Read further to learn more!

What is Pearl Couscous?

Pearl couscous or ptitim is an Israeli couscous made in the 60s when they didn’t have much access to rice. It is similar to “ordinary” couscous, and is grain-like food made from semolina or wheat flour. However, Israeli couscous has a slightly chewy texture, similar to barley or possibly pasta sometimes. If you don’t have access to pearl couscous you can obviously use other grain too, like ordinary couscous, bulgur, quinoa or similar.

Using chickpeas as the protein source

To make this salad into a complete meal - including fats, carbs AND proteins - I decided to add some chickpeas. I love salads like these and the chickpeas specifically get so delicious when marinating them. You can choose by yourself if you want to keep them like that or then frying them in the marinade in a frying pan until slightly golden and roasted.

Greek salad without feta cheese…

… is not a Greek salad. So I decided to add some feta cheese! I however, made this salad completely vegan and that’s the reason my choice of feta cheese today, in this recipe, is vegan too.

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THIS RECIPE IS:

• Vegan

• Simple to make

• Fresh and full of natural ingredients

• Greek Style

• Can be eaten as a main salad or as a side dish/salad

• Very suiting for summer and delicious to eat as a side for barbeque

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Greek Style Pearl Couscous Chickpea Salad

All measurements are approximate for 2 mains or approx 4 servings as sides*

INGREDIENTS:

2 dl pearl couscous

400 g (half package) boiled chickpeas

0.3 Red onion

6 cherry tomatoes or 1 ripe tomato

0.3 cucumber

6-8 Greek Kalamon olives

Some vegan feta cheese

2-3 tbsp capers

Olive oil

1 small garlic clove, can be excluded

Dried spearmint

Dried oregano

Red wine vinegar

Sea salt

HOW TO MAKE:

• Cook the pearl couscous according to the instructions on the package.

• Place the chickpeas in a bowl and ripple over approx 1 tbsp olive. Add 0.5 tbsp oregano and 0.5 tbsp spearmint, and some salt. If you want to, add a small pressed garlic clove (can be excluded though if you don’t like garlic). Combine all together and let it marinade.

  You can either keep the chickpeas like these, marinated, or fry them thereafter in its marinade in a frying pan until slightly golden.

• Slice the onion. Cut the tomatos and cucumber. Place the couscous and all the vegetables on a plate or in a bowl. Add the chickpeas, capers, olives and finish with some olive oil, red wine vinegar, more herbs and salt after taste.

• Serve as a main salad or as a side dish.

NOTES:

• All the measurements in the recipe are approximate. You can add more or less of some ingredients if you want to.

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