Instant Pot Giant Cous Cous with Seafood

This Instant Pot Giant Cous Cous with Seafood is so good! So good that, in fact, you should all try it!

I had never cooked giant cous cous until a few weeks ago when I saw it in Aldi.

I tried a quick lunch experiment and it turned out well so last week I decided to recreate it with a few added touches. It turned out amazing and it’s so quick and easy.

You can scale this recipe up or down. Always remembering the rule about filling your Instant Pot up to half way when pressure cooking ingredients that expand or foam up.

The most useful thing I can tell you when cooking giant cous cous is the ratio and the cooking times and then you can play to your heart’s content so:

Ratio is 1:2.5. That’s one cup of giant cous cous to two and a half cups of liquid (homemade stock in this case).

Cooking time is one minute on manual with a 6 minute QPR.

This means that six minutes after it finishes cooking you let out the rest of the steam trapped inside by performing a Quick Pressure Release.

Please note that this recipe is for giant cous cous, not normal cous cous which cooks in no time with hot water.

How do I set my Instant Pot to Sauté Less?

The Sauté button of the Instant Pot generally has 3 settings: Less, Normal and More (i.e. low, normal and high).

If your Instant Pot has an Adjust button: Press the Sauté button followed by the Adjust button until under Less lights up.

If your Instant Pot doesn’t have a Sauté button: press the button repeatedly.

In the Duo Evo Plus you have 6 Sauté settings (yes, I know, awesome, right?) and you use the dial.

In the video below in fact you can see how I set it to Less in the Duo Plus.

The recipe in the video below doesn’t exactly show you the ingredients below but the method is the same and, in fact, it serves the purpose of showing you just how versatile this recipe is.

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Instant Pot Giant Cous Cous with Seafood

Fancy printable recipe card below

Serves 4 not-very-hungry people and 2 hungry people. You can double up the recipe. Double all the ingredients except the carrot (it can make it quite sweet) and use the same timings.

Ingredients

Note for Thermomix users: make your life easier by chopping the onion, garlic cloves, carrot and chilli for 5 seconds on speed 5 then add the pepper and do 2 more seconds, speed 5 then decant everything into the Instant Pot’s inner pot to Sauté.

– 1 onion, finely chopped

– 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

– 1 small carrot, finely chopped or grated

– One quarter orange pepper (or your favourite colour pepper)

– Half a red chilli, deseeded (if you don’t like spicy food, don’t add it, this recipe is very versatile)

– 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or oil of your choice

– 1 small chunk of spicy chorizo (it doesn’t have to be spicy chorizo, in fact it doesn’t have to be chorizo at all, you could always use a teaspoon of paprika, although I’d probably use a teaspoon of sweet and a teaspoon of smoked paprika)

– 1 lemon, zested and juiced

– 550 ml stock (I used homemade chicken stock like this one, you could also use water and a couple of heaped tablespoons of my vegetable stock paste). This particular stock had then been used to make my Chicken, Leek and Carrot Soup with chorizo so it already had extra lovely flavour. I had made the soup with so much stock that I just took the necessary amount out of the soup.

– 145 g giant cous cous (this was one and a quarter cups using the measuring cup that comes with your Instant Pot). Most supermarkets in the UK seem to sell their own brands of this type of cous cous.

– 2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced

– 175 g frozen Mixed Seafood (I used a pack from Tesco called Seafood Selection, “a cooked selection of mussels, kings prawns and squid rings), no need to defrost

To serve

– Lemon wedges

– Fresh coriander, chopped

Method

1. Press the Sauté button and set to Less. Add the oil and sauté all the veg for a good 5 minutes. Add the chorizo and keep sauteing, letting it release its lovely juices, keep stirring to coat the vegetables.

2. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice and the stock. Stir in the cous cous, the spring onions and the frozen seafood.

3. Lock the lid in. Steam Release Handle pointing to Sealing. Press the “Manual” or “Pressure Cook” button and programme 1 minute with the – and + buttons. Do a 6 minute quick pressure release at the end. This means that, when it finishes cooking, you wait 6 minutes and then do a QPR (Quick Pressure Release) to let the rest of the steam trapped inside out. I set the timer on my phone to 6 minutes when I hear the Instant Pot beep to say it’s finished cooking.

Serve with the freshly chopped coriander and the lemon wedges. Enjoy!

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Instant Pot Giant Cous Cous with Seafood

Giant cous cous (also called israeli couscous or pearl couscous) is delicious and so easy cooked under pressure. Pressure cooked with seafood in the Instant Pot, the result is so good and the dish so easy

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Course Appetizer, main

Servings 4 not-very-hungry people or 2 hungry people, feel free to double it up, same times

Ingredients

  

• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
• 1 small carrot finely chopped or grated
• 1/4 orange pepper or your favourite colour pepper
• 1/2 red chilli deseeded (if you don’t like spicy food, don’t add it, this recipe is very versatile)
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or oil of your choice
• 1 small chunk of spicy chorizo it doesn’t have to be spicy chorizo, in fact it doesn’t have to be chorizo at all, you could always use a teaspoon of paprika, although I’d probably use a teaspoon of sweet and a teaspoon of smoked paprika
• 1 lemon zested and juiced
• 550 ml stock I used homemade chicken, you could also use water and a couple of heaped tablespoons of my vegetable stock paste. This particular stock had then been used to make my Chicken, Leek and Carrot Soup with chorizo so it already had extra lovely flavour. I had made the soup with so much stock that I just took the necessary amount out of the soup.
• 145 g giant cous cous this was one and a quarter cups using the measuring cup that comes with your Instant Pot. Most supermarkets in the UK seem to sell their own brands of this type of cous cous.
• 2 spring onions trimmed and sliced
• 175 g frozen Mixed Seafood I used a pack from Tesco called Seafood Selection, “a cooked selection of mussels, kings prawns and squid rings, no need to defrost

To serve

• Lemon wedges 1 or 2 per person
• Fresh coriander chopped

Instructions

 

Note for Thermomix users: make your life easier by chopping the onion, garlic cloves, carrot and chilli for 5 seconds on speed 5 then add the pepper and do 2 more seconds, speed 5 then decant everything into the Instant Pot’s inner pot to Sauté.

• Press the Sauté button immediately followed by the Adjust button to set your Instant Pot to Sauté-Less. Add the oil and sauté all the veg for a good 5 minutes. Add the chorizo and keep sauteing, letting it release its lovely juices, keep stirring to coat the vegetables.
• Add the lemon zest, lemon juice and the stock. Stir in the cous cous, the spring onions and the frozen seafood.
• Lock the lid in. Steam Release Handle pointing to Sealing. Press the “Manual” or “Pressure Cook” button and programme 1 minute with the – and + buttons. Do a 6 minute quick pressure release at the end. This means that, when it finishes cooking, you wait 6 minutes and then do a QPR (Quick Pressure Release) to let the rest of the steam trapped inside out. I set the timer on my phone to 6 minutes when I hear the Instant Pot beep to say it’s finished cooking.
• Serve with the freshly chopped coriander and the lemon wedges. Enjoy!

Notes

Serves 4 not-very-hungry people or 2 hungry people. You can double up the recipe. Double all the ingredients except the carrot (it can make it quite sweet) and use the same timings.

*Terminology

 

Quick release (also called quick pressure release or QPR) means venting the steam as soon as the pressure cooking process finishes, i.e. moving the steam release handle from Sealing to Venting.

 

Natural release (also called natural pressure release or NPR) means letting the float valve pop back down of its own accord, so basically you don’t need to do anything at the end and can keep your feet up. If it takes over 15 minutes, you’re ok to release the rest of the steam (by turning the steam release handle to Venting) that may be left in order to unlock and open the lid. 

 

Sometimes you’ll see me talk of a combination of NPR followed by a QPR. For example a recipe may have a 4 minute NPR followed by a QPR. You wait for 4 minutes at the end of the pressure cooking time and then do a QPR by moving the steam release handle from Sealing to Venting.