Vegan Couscous & Halloumi Salad, so tasty!

Making this warm Vegan Couscous & Halloumi Salad is quick and easy. It’s colourful, healthy and so tasty! Great when you need something in a hurry, after a long day at work!

With its mix of vegetables, it’s packed with vitamins.

Ingredients in this Vegan Couscous & Halloumi Salad

Couscous is said to be rich in selenium. You can read about the science-based health benefits of selenium on healthline.com.

Vegan Halloumi cheese (I used Tesco Free From Coconut alternative to Halloumi) has a hard texture when you slice it and, to be honest, it’s not that appealing. But frying it in a pan of tasty smoked paprika oil brings it alive. It softens to a kind of chewy texture that works so well with the vegetables in this dish. This is mainly because stir-frying them for only a few minutes leaves them with a little bite, thus giving them their own, stand-alone textures.

The vegetables in this dish all stir-fry well and I really like the combination of courgette and sweetcorn together. But you could use broccoli instead to give you a green colour contrast.

And bell peppers are great for cooking quickly so they keep a bit of crunch – yummy! You can, of course, use any colour bell pepper, but the red looks great in this dish!

This time I used tinned sweetcorn, but defrosted sweetcorn works just as well. However, if you haven’t got time to let it defrost, just add it to the pan 30 seconds or so before you add the courgette and pepper.

I am a great one for seasoning my food and the capers add salt to this dish – so, when adding seasoning, just bear this in mind before adding more salt.

We are all used to eating radishes in cold salads, but they really are very good when cooked slightly and eaten warm.

Please leave me a comment below if you put radish in hot dishes, I would love to know how you like them! ????

How to Make

Start by placing the dried couscous and stock powder in a bowl and pour over the just-boiled water. Give it a stir to make sure the stock powder is distributed evenly and cover with a lid or plate. Leave for 5 minutes so the couscous can soak up the liquid and reconstitute.

Then heat half the oil in a large frying pan and add the onion and garlic.

Stir-fry the onion and garlic for 2 minutes and then add the courgette, sweetcorn, and red pepper.

Again, just stir-fry for 2 minutes before adding the radish and capers.

Just stir-fry the radish and capers for a minute and then add to the couscous, which will now be light and fluffy when you whisk it with a fork. Add the chopped parsley and mix well. Then cover to keep warm whilst you fry the halloumi cheese.

Stir-frying is a great way to cook vegetables. But it’s important to add them in the right order to ensure those that take longer to cook go in the pan first, and those that cook really quickly, go in last. Thus the order you need to add the vegetables to this dish.

To finish this fabulous dish that can be made in 20 minutes, including prep time, you just need to mix the remaining oil together with the smoked paprika. Heat the oil and paprika mixture in a pan, (I just use the same pan I use for the vegetables) and add the halloumi slices.

The halloumi slices only need a couple of minutes on each side so I use a pastry brush to brush all the sides so that when I turn them over, they will have the lovely paprika oil flavouring on them.

All you need to do now is put the couscous on a serving plate and top with the cooked halloumi. Decorate with some parsley – I like to sprinkle some over the top when served individually.

Then sit down and enjoy this tasty, colourful and healthy Vegan Couscous & Halloumi Salad ????

Now try my Vegan Couscous Stuffed Mushrooms!

Don’t forget to leave me a comment – I love to hear what you think!