Chicken and chickpea tagine with couscous
Warm spices, soft chicken and chickpeas in a sauce that is sweet and savoury at once. Not much work for how good it tastes.
Notable for: vitamin A, vitamin C, fibre
Ingredients
- 850 gchicken breast, halved
- 820 gchickpeas in brine, 2 cans, drained
- 300 gcouscous
- 600 gorange kumara, 3 cm cubes
- 300 gbrown onions, sliced
- 250 gcarrots, thick coins
- 400 gchopped tomatoes
- 10 gground cumin
- 10 gsmoked paprika
- 5 gcurry powder
- 15 gcrushed garlic
- 10 gcrushed ginger
- 2stock cubes, in 700 ml water
- 1lemons
- 10 mlolive oil
Method
Brown the chicken thighs in the oil in a heavy pot, 4 minutes a side, then lift them out.
Cook the onion in the same pot for 8 minutes until soft and golden at the edges.
Add the cumin, paprika, curry powder, garlic and ginger and cook for a full minute.
Add the tomatoes, stock, kumara and carrot, return the chicken to the pot, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes.
Add the chickpeas for the last 8 minutes with the lid off, so the sauce reduces and thickens.
Soak the couscous in boiling stock for 8 minutes and fork it through, then squeeze the lemon juice over the tagine to finish.
Brown the chicken before anything else
The browned bits left on the base of the pot are the backbone of the sauce. Skipping this step gives you a stew that tastes only of spice and tomato.
Storage
Keeps four days in the fridge and freezes well.
Cook the couscous fresh, since it goes claggy when reheated.
Cost per serving is indicative, based on New Zealand supermarket prices as at September 2026. Batch prices your own week against your own store on the day. Nutrition figures, including calories, are estimates rather than label readings, so always check the packet if you have an allergy. "Notable for" reflects well-established qualities of the ingredients used, not a lab measurement of this exact dish.