A deliciously colourful salad with roasted heirloom rainbow carrots and red onions layered on top of a bed of chewy pearl couscous, fresh mint and chopped almonds. A salad that satisfies.
Wash heirloom carrots and trim the tops. Peel them if you need to.
Over medium heat, dry roast cumin seeds for 2 minutes to release the aromates.
In a mixing bowl, place toasted cumin seeds, heirloom carrots, olive oil and salt together. Toss well.
Peel and cut the red onion in half. Then cut each half into thirds. You end up with 6 pieces per onion.
Place heirloom carrots with toasted cumin seeds on one side of the sheet pan and red onions on the other side. Drizzle the red onions with olive oil and season with sea salt.
Roast in the oven for 20 minutes or until tender and browned. Remove roasted heirloom carrots and red onions from the oven once done.
Wash and roughly chop mint leaves.
Over medium heat, dry roast whole almonds for a couple of minutes. Then remove from heat and roughly chop.
Salad Dressing
In a small mixing bowl, mix all the salad dressing ingredients together.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Assembly
In a large mixing bowl, place pearl couscous, roasted red onions, mint leaves and ½ almonds together.
Add ¾ honey dijon dressing into the bowl and toss well.
Use a large serving platter and tumble the pearl couscous and red onions mixture onto the platter.
Now place the roasted heirloom carrots into the mixing bowl and dress with remaining honey dijon dressing.
Mix together and then tumble on top of the pearl couscous and red onion mixture.
Scatter remaining chopped almonds and serve.
Notes
If you can’t find heirloom carrots, dutch carrots work the same.
For a vegan salad recipe, substitute honey with maple syrup or rice malt syrup.
You can substitute vegetable stock for water when cooking pearl couscous.
For a nut free option, switch the almonds for pumpkin or sunflower seeds.