The Best Turkish Couscous (Kısır)

Turkish couscous, or kısır, is a delicious and healthy salad. This is the easiest and best way for you to make some couscous salad of your own at home!

Full of fresh vegetables and a variety of seasonings, it’s a classic dish, and a super popular one in my household. The recipe is incredibly simple but involves some key techniques that you should know before you begin.

The Key Techniques:

1. Don’t add too much water

In this recipe, less is more. Don’t worry about the couscous feeling hard, even after the water is added. The couscous will soften more as it is mixed throughout the recipe, and as it takes in more ingredients. 

2. Be gentle

Don’t squeeze the couscous, especially when the fresh ingredients are added in – you don’t want to mash them up!

3. Include ingredients in order

Put the fresh ingredients in a specific order – starting from hardest to softest. This is important if you are making your own ingredient inclusions. For example, if you choose to add chives, you should add it after the parsley as it will be smaller and softer. The softest ingredients should be included last as the more you mix them around in the bowl the more their integrity will wither away. 

The Simple Ingredients:

Ingredients for recipe: couscous, parsley, tomato, mint, lettuce, cucumber, black pepper, salt, cumin, tomato paste and lemon.

This couscous is full of fresh vegetables – it’s a very salad-esque recipe. I love including tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, cucumber and parsley. If you like you can also add chives, spring onions or red pepper for example.

Start by adding boiling water to the couscous. You really don’t want to add too much here – less is more. After adding the water, cover the bowl of couscous with a lid or cling film and leave for 15-20 minutes. When you come back to the bowl, you want the couscous to feel relatively dry and firm, and the consistency to look like this:

Now add the herbs and the fresh ingredients. Make sure you add the soft ingredients last. Here, I added the herbs, cucumber and lettuce together, and then mixed it in. Later on I added the tomato and parsley.

Mixing by hand is ideal. I wear a glove as to not get super messy. Make sure not to be too rough when mixing. A light mix of the couscous by hand will be more than enough.

You can serve with cucumber, lettuce leaves or vine leaves!

The Best Turkish Couscous

Turkish couscous, or kısır, is a delicious and healthy salad. This is the easiest and best way for you to make some couscous salad of your own at home!
Prep Time20 minutes
Servings: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 200 g couscous
  • 90 g shredded Lettuce
  • 47 g peeled and finely diced tomato 1 small tomato
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp cumin
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp dry mint
  • 1 tsp dry parsley
  • 135 g finely diced cucumber half a cucumber
  • 20 g diced fresh parsley
  • 1 tbsp sun-dried tomato paste salça
  • 5 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp pomegranate sauce
  • ½ lemon juiced
  • 50 ml boiling water

Instructions

  • Combine boiling water and couscous into a large mixing bowl. Cover the bowl with cling film or a lid and place to the side for 15-20 minutes.
  • Remove cling film/lid from bowl. Start mixing the couscous by hand to make sure it has all softened. Add the salt, black pepper, cumin, mint, olive oil and the tomato paste and mix until coated evenly.
  • Add the cucumber and mix until spread within the couscous evenly. Add the lettuce and mix again. Add the tomato and mix, then add parsley and mix, always mixing by hand.
  • Add the lemon juice and pomegranate sauce and mix. Enjoy!

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