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Giant couscous — the pearl-sized kind, sometimes sold as pearl or Israeli couscous — is cooked like pasta rather than soaked, and it makes a far better salad than the fine sort. The grains stay separate, they do not go claggy, and they hold up for days in a lunchbox.
Cook it like pasta, and salt the water
Plenty of boiling salted water, 8 to 10 minutes, then drained. Check it a minute early: you want it tender with a little bite, the same judgement you would make about pasta. Overcooked, it goes soft and starts sticking together.
Salt the water properly. This is the only chance to season the grains themselves, and unseasoned couscous is why a lot of grain salads taste of nothing but their dressing.
Rinse briefly, then oil it
A quick rinse under cold water stops the cooking and washes off the surface starch that makes grains clump. Drain well, then fork a spoonful of olive oil through straight away so they stay separate as they cool.
Fork it, do not stir it with a spoon. Stirring compacts grains; a fork lifts and separates them.
Dress it while it is still warm
Warm grains absorb dressing; cold ones let it sit at the bottom of the bowl. Add the oil and lemon while the couscous is still warm and it tastes seasoned all the way through.
For lunchboxes, hold a little extra dressing back and add it when packing, for the same reason as our lunchbox pasta salad — grains keep drinking dressing over a few days.
If you only have fine couscous
It works, with a different method: equal volumes of couscous and boiling stock, covered tightly for 10 minutes, then forked through. The covering is what matters — the trapped steam is what cooks it, and an uncovered bowl gives you couscous that is soft on top and gritty underneath. Everything after that is the same.
What to put in it
Cucumber, cherry tomatoes, olives, feta, peppers, chickpeas, or leftover roast chicken. Chop everything to roughly the size of the grains, so it can be eaten with a fork rather than chased round the box.
For children under about four, quarter the cherry tomatoes lengthways and halve the olives.
Storage
Three to four days refrigerated, in line with standard guidance for cooked grains and cut vegetables. Keep it properly chilled in a lunchbox — two slim ice packs and an insulated bag, as in keeping a packed lunch cold.
