Today, a recipe for a unique dish: fresh and nutritious couscous with zucchini and chickpeas!
When it’s hot and we don’t feel like turning on the stove for a long time, couscous comes to our rescue. I love it so much, it’s light and nutritious and, if combined with vegetables and legumes, it’s also a great unique dish.
Perfect to take with us to the beach or to put in our office lunchbox, we can easily prepare it the day before, put it in a container, and it will be ready at our disposal.
Easy and quick to prepare, it doesn’t require great cooking skills, especially if we smartly use the precooked one found in supermarkets. All it needs is rehydration and seasoning; today, I propose joining it with zucchini, chickpeas, and tomatoes: a true delight!
Ah! Don’t forget to save the chickpea water, aquafaba or aquafaba you can use it for many recipes both sweet and savory. If you don’t know it, you’ll surely fall in love with it.
Now, let’s see together, step by step, how to make this recipe.
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- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Very Cheap
- Rest time: 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer
- Energy 219.76 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 25.94 (g) of which sugars 1.97 (g)
- Proteins 7.91 (g)
- Fat 9.37 (g) of which saturated 1.22 (g)of which unsaturated 6.62 (g)
- Fibers 5.18 (g)
- Sodium 375.96 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 250 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for couscous for 4 people
- 2 cups zucchini
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp onion
- 10.5 oz cooked couscous
- 1.25 cups water
- 7 oz tomato (I use red vine tomatoes)
- 8.8 oz canned chickpeas
- 2 leaves basil
- 1.5 tbsp pesto
- to taste salt
- to taste pepper
Tools
Below you will find links to some tools used to make the recipe
- 1 Scale
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Wok
- 1 Bowl
Let’s prepare couscous together
Wash the zucchini, remove the ends, and cut them into slices, then into strips, and finally into cubes. Use a small paring knife to make them small.
Wash the tomatoes and cut them like the zucchini, so first cut them into slices, then strips, and finally small cubes. Finely chop half an onion after peeling it. Chop the two basil leaves. Set aside tomatoes and basil.
In a non-stick pan, pour the olive oil and the previously chopped onion, and let it sauté lightly, then add the zucchini and let them cook over medium heat for four to five minutes, stirring occasionally.
After 4/5 minutes, add the drained and rinsed chickpeas to the pan, then adjust with salt and pepper, and let it cook for a couple of minutes with the zucchini, adding a ladle of water and stirring. When the water has evaporated, turn off the heat.
In the meantime, while zucchini and chickpeas are cooking, let’s work on the couscous: in a small pot, heat the water and in a bowl, place the couscous. When the water is hot (not boiling), pour it over the couscous and let it sit for 5 minutes to swell.
After the five minutes (or as indicated on your couscous package), pour a drizzle of olive oil over it and start fluffing it with a fork, it’s enough to pass it through and it will form many grains.
Now we can assemble our recipe. Pour the toppings onto the couscous, then add the zucchini with chickpeas, tomatoes, basil, and pesto, and mix to combine the ingredients. Taste and adjust with salt, and if too dry, add a drizzle of oil.
A Curly Girl’s Advice
To add more flavor to the nutritious couscous with zucchini and chickpeas, you can add a pinch of saffron to the water for rehydrating the couscous; it will give a nice yellow color and a unique taste.
