This autumn couscous salad with butternut squash, fennel, dried cranberries, currants, and sage makes a great light and healthy lunch, or can even be enjoyed as a side dish.
Salads seem like such a summer thing, but I’m bucking the perception with my version of one of my favorite fall salads. Say hello to butternut squash and fall flavors touched by a tart pucker in my ode to Whole Foods Market’s Autumn Couscous Salad.
Having a spot right across the street to make my morning coffee grab and go, (“Who wants to make a coffee run?”) then at about 12:10 p.m. take a quick, 5 minute walk for a spin at the salad bar, (“Who brought? Nobody? Cool, let’s make a run across the street,”) and sometimes a stretch of the legs for a late afternoon sweet treat, (“Hey! They’re giving out samples of Ruby Snaps, hustle it up,”) made my work days somehow bearable.
My lunchtime salads usually consisted of the same base ingredients: mixed greens, peas or edamame, beets (putting in my request here: Whole Foods, when will you carry pickled beets instead of the raw?), garbanzo beans, a few slices of egg and maybe a few other goodies including tart cranberries to offset fresh blue cheese chunks and spunk up my salad ways.
When fall hit the calendar, my favorite cranberries became part of one of their specialty salads on the gourmet portion of the old salad bar, and it soon became a staple to layer on my lunch as well.
I’ve wanted to remake this salad for the past two years, but it wasn’t until after I picked it up twice from the store this past week that I felt like I could figure out the secret to its flavor bursts.
Since Whole Foods generously lists all of their ingredients on their packaging labels, that part was done. But figuring out the proportions and the technique was where my Nancy Drew detective techniques came into play.
Israeli coucous, also known as Pearl cousous, is a larger grain than it’s tiny couscous cousin and is cooked in water like a pasta rather than absorbing the water or broth. Israeli couscous has a similar taste to pasta too, more nubby in texture, making it perfectly suited for a vinaigrette.
Fennel is the real enchancer in this salad, thanks to its light licorice notes paired with mellow shallots. Cooking these flavors with the butternut squash in apple juice, then spiking the whole deal with sage brings fall to its savory knees then smacks it right in the kisser when plumped up cranberries and currants join the apple juice hot tub.
This salad could be served warm, but I prefer it just like on the salad bar, or at room temperature, and it only gets better the longer the flavors have time to meld together.
Now that I’m working on my own from home this salad still makes my day, and while I miss my daily jaunts to Whole Foods, the view is much better from here.
If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating on this recipe below and leave a comment, take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.
Autumn Couscous Salad
Ingredients
- 8 ounces Israeli or Pearl couscous , about 1 ½ cups
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 shallot , diced, about 2 tablespoons
- 1 fennel bulb , diced, about 1 cup
- 2 ½ cups butternut squash , peeled, seeded and diced
- 3 tablespoons fresh sage , chopped
- ¾ cup dried cranberries
- ½ cup dried currants
- 1 ½ cups apple juice , (reserving ¼ cup of the cooked juice)
- ¼ cup canola oil
- 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- kosher salt and pepper
- 1 tablespoon parsley , chopped
Instructions
- Bring water to boil in a medium size saucepan, add couscous and bring back to a boil then lower to medium and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain in a colander, but do not rinse. Set aside in a mixing bowl to cool.
- Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Add the shallot and cook for 1 minute, stirring often. Add diced fennel and cook for another 5 minutes or until fennel softens. Add butternut squash, sage, cranberries, currants and apple juice and cook for 15 minutes or until butternut squash has softened and almost all of the apple juice has cooked down. Season with kosher salt and pepper.Transfer the mixture to the bowl with the couscous, reserving about ¼ cup of the apple juice for the vinaigrette.
- In a small bowl, mix the reserved apple juice, canola oil, red wine vinegar and more salt and pepper to taste. Add to the coucous with the parsley and stir. Let coucous sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes for flavors to meld before serving. Add more sage if desired.
Nutrition
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I accidentally bought Israeli couscous with turmeric. Do you think that would change the flavor too much? I’m planning to serve at a party so I don’t want to totally mess it up!
Hi Jill! We actually think that could be a happy accident! The turmeric flavor is likely on the milder side, but that flavor will go well as it’s nice and warm—very autumnal. We hope you enjoy!
It would be very helpful to have # servings or serving sizes noted. I am following a plan in which expected portion sizes should be measured, so that would help a lot. Thanks!
Great recipe, I made it and roasted the squash so it would hold its shape better, I agree that the dressing could be less. I think I will add some chopped scallions at the end next time for a bit more bite. And there will be a next time.
Beautiful salad and very tasty. BTW couscous cooks up “like” pasta because it “is” pasta, not a grain. Couscous are small steamed balls of semolina (the wheat middlings of durum wheat used in making pasta).
Nice job with recreating the recipe. I look forward to making it again.
Just made it ! It was good next time I would lower the amount of dressing by half I would of enjoyed it a little less wet. Just a personal preference
Thanks for the note Thomas, and glad to know you’re making it to suit your taste.
Do you have to roast the squash first?
No , when you boil it the squash cooks
omg – I’ve been trolling the internet for this exact recipe today, as I bought some at Whole Foods last night and *loved* it. Thank you! This appears to be almost exactly it.
That is great Amber. So glad it was kismet, I love that recipe too.
I know people will say, well, just leave it out! But, what could I substitute for the squash?
Yams
wow, this salad looks delicious – I could need a bowl right now! :-)
I just finished making this….so unbelievably delicious!! I couldn’t find currents, but otherwise followed directions exactly. Will be making this one often!
Hi Kristin, Thanks for letting me know you liked it! I substitute dried cranberries for the currants when I don’t have any on hand. It’s all about the tart bite to offset the other flavors.
Heidi—I love the looks of this salad. I think it would be a great hit at a luncheon that I have to prepare food for. The only thing I wonder is how many this would serve? I have to prepare for 18 to 20 ladies. Can you give me an idea for how much to make of the Autumn Couscous salad?
Thank you for your help.
I would say 6-8 servings on this salad. Try to triple the recipe! Thanks Joyce!
This was incredible!!! Thanks so much for a fantastic recipe!
I just made this tonight for my boyfriend and I, and WOW we both loved it! I’ve never cooked with fennel before but this was absolutely delish. I made everything the same as the recipe but because it’s summer here I replaced the raisins and cranberries with pomegranate seeds, lovely! Thank you for the awesome recipe – there’s no Whole Foods in Australia so I’ve never had anything like it!
I just made the same salad and before I hit publish, did a search to see if anyone else had done the same thing I had which led me here. Yours looks better than the original!
I saw this in my feed approximately one hour after eating the divine salad at Whole Foods! I bet apple cider vinegar would work in place of the red wine vinegar and apple cider might even be delicious in place of the apple juice. YUM.
Beautiful salad…and, funny story behind it with you and Lori. Thanks for sharing, Heidi!
I looooooove Israeli couscous. Beautiful salad, love all the flavors in it!
I love the combination of sweet & savoury in this salad.. this is something I know I would like! Looks really great! Xx
I have a salad on my blog that I fell in love with last fall at Whole Foods and I had to recreate it on my blog. I did the same thing with looking at the ingredients on the packaging label and figured it out. The hardest part was the ratios for the dressing. I love trying to recreate dishes from whole foods, they always have such amazing meals in their deli section too. My kids and I are huge fans of Israeli couscous so I know they will love this as much as I do. I will be making the soon!
We have pickled beets over in Denver! Also, I’ve made that salad a bunch of times (I work there) and we roast the squash separately and then the couscous is toasted in the oven first before being boiled – not huge differences though!
I wondered why the couscous was so very big ! I didn’t even know couscous was made that large. I’ll have to take a trip a Whole Foods store – I’m assuming they sell Israeli couscous there.
You’ve done a great job of figuring about how they made this – looks yummy!!
This is so lovely! I can totally see this as a quick room temp salad lunch or as a great side for Thanksgiving!
Dang! This is so pretty! I have never had the whole foods version, but I am positive this is better and cheaper! Yes! I love the idea of a healthy and hearty fall salad!
Yum! This looks absolutely perfect for the cold weather ahead!
I fully support cooler weather salads, and yep. Totally steal/magically find inspiration from the Whole Foods salad bar, like, ALL the time. I used to live by one and holy jeez. My matcha + muffin/giant salad runs were like clockwork. I’ll call it healthy distraction. This looks and sounds so, so wonderful, Heidi. I love fennel and butternut squash together.
I love that salad at whole foods too! I laughed out loud at your sentence with your “requests, you’re so right – pickled beets would be so much better than the raw ones! Although we do have hardboiled eggs and cranberries at ours… lucky us I guess :)
Love all the flavors in this dish! Pinned!
I’m all about fall salads! This recipe is lovely!!
Dang girl, that is one gorgeous salad. I love the Whole Foods version. Will have to give it a try at home!
NICE detective work!! I could have a bowl of this beauty every day for lunch and be one happy girl.
Great job, Nancy Drew! I love fennel, cranberries, squash and I’m too cheap to buy WF’s salad bar food, so it’s nice to have a DIY version! pinned
I love Israeli couscous, wonderful autumn salad!
I am such a freak for fresh fennel bulb – love that you included it!!
Wow I love the colours and sweetness of this salad. It must be the perfect fall dinner or lunch. You take the most beautiful salad shots
This is gorgeous, Heidi! Love the autumn flavors, and the addition of fennel. Congrats on your new day job view ;)
You did it! And I’ll bet you did a LOT better than Whole Foods did it :) I want some!