Moroccan Chicken Salad

By Florence Fabricant

Updated November 4, 2025

  • Meredith Heuer for The New York Times
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
1 hour
Rating
4(249)
Comments
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Just as a little saffron, garlic and paprika can conjure the flavors of Spain, so too will preserved lemons, cumin, mint and olives evoke Morocco. This salad and the accompanying couscous can be doubled or tripled to anchor a generous buffet. Both can be assembled a couple of hours in advance and set aside on a kitchen counter. Serve them at room temperature.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings

  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin

  • 1 teaspoon hot Spanish paprika

  • 1 teaspoon salt

  • 6 skinless bone-in chicken thighs

  • 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

  • ⅓ cup dry white wine

  • 1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut in 2-by-½-inch strips

  • ½ cup thinly sliced onion

  • 2 small zucchini, ends trimmed, quartered lengthwise and sliced ½-inch thick

  • 16 small pitted green olives

  • 1 ½ teaspoons harissa

  • ¼ cup lemon juice

  • 1 ½ teaspoons honey

  • ½ preserved lemon, flesh removed and peel minced

  • ¾ cup instant couscous

  • ½ cup fresh mint leaves in chiffonade

Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

38 grams carbs; 284 milligrams cholesterol; 1024 calories; 36 grams monosaturated fat; 13 grams polyunsaturated fat; 16 grams saturated fat; 71 grams fat; 5 grams fiber; 1003 milligrams sodium; 54 grams protein; 7 grams sugar

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Combine cumin, paprika and ½ teaspoon salt in a shallow bowl, and lightly coat chicken with spices. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a sauté pan. Sear chicken on medium-high about 90 seconds on the “skin” side, turn, add wine, reduce heat to very low, cover and braise 25 minutes. Remove chicken and juices to a clean bowl.

  2. Step 2

    Add bell pepper and onion to the pan and sauté on low about 10 minutes, until softened. Add zucchini and olives and sauté until zucchini starts to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in harissa, lemon juice, honey and 3 tablespoons olive oil. Remove from heat.

  3. Step 3

    Using your fingers and a paring knife, remove chicken from the bones and tear meat in strips. Place chicken and juices in a bowl, along with vegetable mixture from the sauté pan and preserved lemon peel. Toss ingredients together and set aside.

  4. Step 4

    Heat remaining tablespoon of oil in a 2-quart saucepan. Add couscous and remaining salt and stir over low heat 2 to 3 minutes. Pour in 1 ¼ cups boiling water, stir, cover and set aside 15 minutes. Uncover, fluff couscous with a fork, stir over low heat a few minutes to dry it, then fold in half the mint. Transfer chicken to a serving platter, scatter with remaining mint and serve with couscous in a bowl alongside, all at room temperature.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
249 user ratings
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Comments

Hannah

Comforting, full flavored, hearty yet not heavy: it's a great dish, a bit time consuming (took me 90-minutes start-to-finish) but quite good. The chicken alone has a delicious preparation - probably worth cooking just that component sometime - and the full dish could become a standby. Two notes: I doubled the amount of salt rubbed into the chicken, and still found that I added some salt to the full dish at the end. Also, adding mint to the couscous made the leaves turn black. Avoid that!

Sandy Camargo

This salad was wonderful. Husband made happy noises throughout. There are several steps, but the salad’s being served at room temperature means one can make it a bit ahead. The only tiny change I made was to add tarragon to the herb mixture, because I hadn’t enough mint.

Maggie

It's a satisfying and affordable meal. The mint really makes this dish! I do wish I had used the thighs called for, but I only had chicken breast. Cooked gently in the wine, however, it was not dry at all; I also had to omit the harissa, due to family members who can't tolerate spice, but again I'm sure it's tastier with it. Pro tip: reserve the chicken braising liquid and use it (along with extra chicken broth) to cook the couscous.

Emma

This was fantastic! I deviated only once from the recipe: I made this with rotisserie chicken instead of raw. I sweared the pulled rotisserie chicken with the spice mix, added wine, and cooked for maybe 5-7 minutes rather than braising for 25. I made everything else as described. 5/5, and going into the regular rotation!

Sarah Louise

This was outstanding and will be going into regular rotation. I did make a couple of small tweaks. I opted to add a little lemon juice along with the wine and went really easy on the harissa as my daughter and I don’t like super spicy dishes. And I didn’t have any preserved lemon but didn’t miss it one bit. Stuffed some of this into a pita with hummus and it was divine.

Sub beef for chicken

I did 2lbs of ground beef and doubled the seasoning. I had no Harissa so I improvised with 2 tsp caraway seeds, 2 tsp coriander and 1 tbslp garam masala. I also tripled the couscous to account for extra ground beef. The result was extremely tasty, juicy and made plenty for leftovers.

Melinda

@Sub beef for chicken So… you made an entirely different dish. Did you try with chicken? Just wondering.

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