I first heard about our now family-favorite dish - Cauliflower Couscous in Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I have to introduce you to this amazing family dinner, so here goes...
So, you need pearl couscous for this dish. I use Bob Red Mill Traditional Pearl Couscous. Couscous is basically little balls of toasted semolina flour to be enjoyed like pasta or rice, it cooks in 15 minutes.

For cauliflower, you can use fresh or frozen. The fresh variety definitely tastes better but when I am running out of time, I use frozen riced cauliflower from Trader Joe's.
What ingredients do you need?
What I used - for our family of three
- 1 bag of riced cauliflower couscous
- Few bits of garlic (or powder)
- 2 cups of pearled couscous
- 3.5 cups of vegetable stock (stick to organic!)
- Bunch of spices (see photo below)
- Salt, pepper, olive oil
- 1/4 cup of store-bought tomato or red-pepper soup (optional)
- Cheese (optional)
This is how you begin:
Saute and brown the frozen cauliflower with olive oil and fresh garlic.

In a separate container, toast the couscous with a little bit of olive oil and then put boiling vegetable stock in it.
Bring the whole mixture to a boil and then simmer it, covered for about 15 minutes.
Use a variety of organic spices to season the cauliflower - paprika, cayenne, onion powder, cumin powder and turmeric. And salt and pepper of course.
Use about 2 tablespoons for olive oil for saute and toasting.

Once the couscous is cooked and the cauliflower is sauteed and seasoned with the spices, mix them together. While serving, add some warm tomato soup on the top (like dressing on the top) and some cheese (but you can keep it dairy-free if you like)
This is what the final product looked like... you can't help but go for seconds ;)

If you want to make this dish, you can check this Bittman recipe. or buy his book - it is a worthwhile investment.
Green Sea Shells is all about the joyful pursuit of happiness. Healthy living is happy living! Join me as I celebrate cultures through food. Subscribe to the blog updates and follow me on social media platforms on FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter.
You will see a few affiliate Amazon links in this post. These are the products I bought to make this dish or bought and used in the past. Know that if you go through them and make a purchase, I will earn a commission.