Mediterranean Couscous Salad
Updated May 21, 2019
This easy Mediterranean Couscous Salad with tomatoes, olives, artichokes, and fresh basil is a summer salad favorite! It is a great side dish to any meal and a great salad to take to potlucks!
Hearty Mediterranean Salad
On Monday, we shared the dessert we served at our Summer Outdoor Dinner Party, Deep Dish Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies. Today, we are sharing the Mediterranean Couscous Salad recipe from our party menu.
We served a green salad and watermelon salad, but I wanted to serve a heartier salad too. I went with couscous because it is so easy to make. If you can boil water, you can make couscous:) We had a lot going on with all of the party prep, so a simple salad was just what we needed.
How To Make Mediterranean Couscous Salad
- We used World Market’s Tri-Color Couscous to make the salad, which is made with coarsely ground semolina, spinach, and tomatoes. Regular couscous will work too. I love couscous because it is so easy to make. All you have to do is mix couscous with boiling water and let it sit undisturbed for a few minutes before it’s ready to eat.
- We added grape tomatoes, kalamata olives, and artichoke hearts to the couscous. I whisked together a light lemon dressing and tossed the salad. That’s it! Easy as can be! I made the salad the morning of the party and kept it in the fridge until it was time to eat. I love a salad that can be made in advance, especially when entertaining.
- I didn’t add feta to the salad because we already had a Watermelon, Feta, & Mint Salad on the menu. I didn’t want to have a feta overkill, but if you are a feta fan, feel free to add it to this salad. It would be tasty!
Everyone loved this easy couscous salad and we hope you love it too! It’s a great salad for summer! And if you are looking for a salad to make for the 4th of July, give this salad a try! It serves a crowd, can be made in advance, and everyone came back for seconds!
If you like this Mediterranean Couscous Salad, you might also like:
- Tzatziki Sauce
- Chickpea Shawarma Bowls
- Israeli Couscous Salad with Roasted Vegetables
- Chickpea Avocado Feta Salad
- Israeli Couscous Salad with Asparagus, Artichokes, & Spinach
Mediterranean Couscous Salad
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 1 16 oz. package couscous
- 2 cups halved grape tomatoes
- 2 cups jarred artichoke hearts drained and chopped
- 1 1/2 cups chopped kalamata olives pits removed
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
Instructions
- Make couscous according to package instructions. Transfer couscous to a large bowl and fluff with a fork. Add the tomatoes, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, and basil.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, and basil. Season with salt and pepper.
- Pour the dressing over the couscous salad and stir until well combined. Season with salt and pepper, if desired. Serve.
- Note-this recipe makes a large salad. You can cut the recipe in half if you need to. This salad can be made in advance and will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Have you tried this recipe?
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I love the olives, artichokes and tomatoes peeing out everywhere! This looks amazingly good. Mediterranean flavors is on of my favorites!
YUM! I may have to make this for Kay’s birthday! We’re doing her birthday in a park next the aquarium then going to see the fishies. I need easy dishes. This would be perfect
You are loving Cost Plus World Market lately. I need to go there, love that store too! Your Couscous salad looks wonderful! Love the flavors!
I could easily eat this every single day. The flavors are perfect!
This looks sooo lovely!
Yum!! This looks wonderful. The colors are so vibrant and perfect!
Now this is my kind of salad!
This looks so tasty! I bet it would be good with some feta on top too 😉
This is just beautiful!! Such great flavors!!
I love making big grain salads for parties because they are always a hit and they’re so easy to throw together. I think this might have to make an appearance on the 4th of July!!
This is so gorgeous, Maria! Definitely my kind of couscous salad, and I love the Mediterranean flavors going on. Perfect for summer parties!
Beautiful salad, Maria!
I agree – the tri-color couscous looks great. Thanks for the lead on where to purchase it. Do you think this could become a light main dish if chickpeas were added?
Yes! Chickpeas would be great in this salad. A great protein boost too!
This is so simple and totally beautiful! I love it….
I love couscous! Such a beautiful looking salad
Incredibly gorgeous! I can’t wait to make this soon!
This sounds like a prefect summer side dish!
I’m collecting enough fabulous salad recipes, I’ll never want for a tasty lunch this summer! Wonderful couscous salad, Maria!
A great lookin healthy salad!
What a gorgeous salad! And healthy too…just perfect!
Are those marinated artichoke hearts? Or not? I need to know right away as going shopping tonight. Will take this to a graduation party Saturday night. I liked someone’s idea of adding garbanzo beans. I usually add garbanzos to my pasta salad.
I used artichokes packed in water, but marinated artichokes would work well too! Garbanzo beans would be a great addition!
I’m loving this salad….definitely adding to my summer salad list!
This looks lovely and summery, I love the idea of using tri-colour couscous to make it even brighter too, thanks for sharing! 😀
from Emily x
Love the colors! Sounds great for a light summer dinner!
I just want to live in your kitchen and taste everything that comes out!
I absolutely love everything in this salad – pinning!!
Kim @ *Soliloquy Of Food & Such*
Beautiful job Maria! I love that you used olives and artichokes, such fab flavors.
this looks so yummy – I love World Market! So many fun goodies! I never leave that store without buying something!
Looks delicious! I’m going to a party this weekend and this would be the perfect salad to bring along. Thank you!
Thought you might like to see this episode of Studio 5 since it is your recipe (even though the name was changed) . A little disappointed to think someone would do this. http://studio5.ksl.com/index.php?nid=126&sid=25743402
Thanks for telling us! Wow, I can’t believe she made our recipe. Crazy!
I love Mediterranean anything! And I will definitely be adding feta cheese. Gorgeous pictures as always 🙂
If I made this I’d eat the entire thing in one sitting 🙂
I love couscous, such a tasty summer salad!
This looks like an amazing meal in itself! Perfect for summer!
Yummy!! Love couscous and Mediterranean flavors here!!
Yum, this salad sounds so good and so easy to make. I’ll be making it next week!
What a great summer salad! I’ll take some for breakfast!!
I have been thinking about these and just can’t get it out of my mind. I need a picnic STAT!!
I am just obsessed with the flavors in this salad! Gorgeous job!
we have been eating a lot of orzo salads, and this will be the perfect dish to end the “rut”
This has my taste buds watering up, LOL Can’t wait to try it, thanks for recipe and all the great giveaways.
This salad is a meal 🙂 love the color, love the ingredients (tomatoes, kalamata olives, artichoke). Guess what I’m bringing to the next BBQ 🙂 thanks for the fantastic recipe
Hi there! I just found your blog in my surfing this afternoon (no, not real ocean surfing) I wish…. I must say, your pictures of this salad are amazing. Totally makes me want to make it! Your site is really fun, I spent quite a bit of time perusing your posts. 🙂 Just thought I would say Hi! Thanks for sharing this yummy recipe, I think I will give it a try soon. If you want to take a peek at my site it is: freshcookinghappypeople.blogspot.com
I did a greek salad recently that I really loved too. 🙂 Happy summer!
~Laura
My favorite, favorite flavors. I see you topped with extra artichoke hearts just for me.
Beautiful pictures, Maria! This looks great.
I don’t make couscous nearly enough. This sounds so good!
I made this last night….delicious! I served it with salmon and grilled okra!
Hi there!
I just saw this recipe and I recently made a blog with a couscous salad recipe, I thought you might like to check it out!
If you have a moment, do you mine checking it out please? Thank you! 🙂
Ps. I love your blog!
This might be a silly question, but how do you think this would freeze? Has anyone every tried that with a similar salad or couscous? I like to make big batches of things that I can later take to work for dinner.
Thank you for this! I’m just starting to learn to cook (much later in life than I should be) and I just made this, and loved how easy it was, very delicious, and I could get all the ingredients easily! I get put off by so many recipes as they have ingredients I don’t know where to buy, or even what the ingredients are. This was simple but worked really well. Thanks! I’ll check out the rest of the site for more recipes now! 🙂
So glad you liked the recipe!
I didn’t have artichokes or olives but I browned some Italian sausage and threw it in. So good! Versatile recipe. loved the dressing!
Glad you liked it!
Need to know the calories per serving
Amazing pictures. Mediterranean couscous salad is combination of taste, I like a balanced diet, a variety of protein and vitamin supplements so that they will have good health. Thx for sharing!
Thanks for this yummy recipe. We did a Mediterranean style lunch for Christmas Day as all my family members love eating healthy. I volunteered to bring this salad. It was a hit. Everyone loved it. The salad dressing was particularly good and the combination of all the ingredients made a delicious and flavorful salad. It made a huge bowl so I had some leftover for next days lunch. I will be making this again for sure!
Excellent recipes //A Dessert recipe series for summer would be greatly appreciated
I finally got to make this Mediterranean couscous salad this past weekend and it was such a hit!!
Glad to hear!
Could cucumbers be added? And could it be made the day before?
Yes to both! Enjoy!
I made this and fell in love!!! Literally was full and happy from one bowl but the recipe comes out to a lot, so thankfully I had two more people with me and leftovers for the week!!!
I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never had Mediterranean couscous salad! This recipe looks great though so hopefully that will change! Thanks for posting it!
lovely food
Absolutely love your creative idea with Mediterranean couscous salad! Can I post it on my blog? Thanks for sharing!
Hi Maria & Josh, the salad looks great. your recipe is very good
Hello Maria, great salad recipe. thanks !
look this wonderful really i can’t belive mediterranean couscous salad is easily made and its my faviourt dish.This looks sooo lovely!
Since I can boil water, it is safe to say that I can make couscous salad but i really doubt if mine will look this tantalizing. There is no harm in trying anyways so I will take up the challenge. Thanks for posting this.
I made this per the recipe except used dried herbs and added 8oz crumbled feta. It was simply d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s! Thank you!!
meant to rate, awesome
Excellente recipe. I added cucumbers cubed. And did not have any garlic nor oregano for the vinaigrette. Nor for the couscous. Tastes fresh, crunchy (cucumbers) and delish. I will make it again! Thanks!