Vegan Couscous Salad

Couscous is great. It's versatile, light, and makes a great base or side for many dishes. You can have it with stew or make it into a salad like in this vegan couscous salad with black beans, avocado, beets and carrots.

One way to make your couscous tastier is to cook it in a vegetable or meat stock. Plain couscous also tastes much better with a dollop of butter added while it is still warm. The couscous you typically buy in a store will come with instructions at the back of the package and therefore is a foolproof way to always get it right. What you do not want is soggy or mushy couscous.

One of my favourite ways to eat couscous is to make it into a salad and you can add whatever bits and bops of vegetables you have sitting in your fridge. It's the perfect lunch because it fills you up nicely but doesn't sit heavy in your stomach like a rock.

This salad is great on its own and does not need any extra protein. Think of it as a meatless-whatever-day-of-the-week salad. That is if you are a meat eater. This salad is also vegetarian and vegan.

Other salads you may love to try are this potato vermicelli salad, a lovely salad with wagashi and shrimp or this light pasta salad,

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Tip
• Couscous Salad with Black Beans and Vegetables

Ingredients

All the ingredients come together to prodcuce a colourful and tasty salad. The black beans can be cooked ahead so that you don't spend too much time waiting for them to be done. In this recipe the beets are also cooked and the rest of the ingredients are either chopped, sliced or grated.

Instructions

In this recipe, the black beans are cooked in water, lemongrass and some salt. This cooking liquid from the beans is then used to cook the couscous giving it a darker, richer colour. It also makes for a lovely contrast to all other bright and fresh ingredients.

While the couscous is cooling mix all the other ingredients together. Add the couscous and a salad dressing or vinaigrette.

A salad dressing of your choice rounds this off beautifully. My go-to dressing for this salad is a honey-mustard vinaigrette which tastes even better when you let it sit overnight and let all the ingredients and the vinaigrette meld.

Substitutions

• Canned beans - you can replace the fresh beans with canned beans. I would however not use the canning liquid to cook the couscous.
• Kidney beans - the choice of beans can easily be substituted with kidney beans, black eyed peas or bambara beans. Simply substitute the black beans with your favourite beans.
• Fonio - you will not be able to call it a couscous salad but you can easily swap couscous with fonio like in this colourful fonio salad .

Variations

• Toasted nuts - the addition of nuts makes for an even tastier salad. You can add cashew nuts, peanuts (groundnuts) ir agushi seeds to this salad.
• Herbs - these add a lot more freshness to the salad and whether basil, coriander/cilantro or parsley, the choice is up to you.

Tip

Leave the vinaigrette for at least an hour in the salad before serving. This way you get the best of this salad. This is a great salad to prepare ahead if you have guests coming over.