You're Never 'Too Busy' for This Instant Couscous Dinner

Couscous, tuna, and whatever you find in the pantry—this five-minute dinner is a lifesaver.
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Alex Lau

Welcome to Cooking Without Recipes, in which we teach you how to make a dish we love, but don’t worry too much about the nitty-gritty details of the recipe, so you can create your own spin.

Dinner seems to come around too frequently. At least, too frequently to always have a fresh idea and time to prep. You see, I have one- and three-year-old boys who literally try and climb me like a tree and insist on being held whenever I’m trying to do anything productive—dinner prep included. Did I mention they must be shoveling food in their mouths by 5:30 p.m. or all hell breaks loose? So when the refrigerator is bare and I’m short on time, I reach for my go-to quick dinner: couscous with tuna and capers. Here's how I do it:

Alex Lau

Start with some couscous, which takes almost no time to cook and makes the perfect canvas for endless meals on short notice. Steep couscous in a bowl with a one-to-one ratio of simmering broth, stock, or water for five minutes. Add a can of good Italian-style tuna packed in olive oil; I like Cento, Callipo, or Cole's. The olive oil is really the key, though—it keeps things satiating.

Next, throw in a few flavor-packed staples that will turn this into a meal: capers, pepperoncini, lemon juice, halved cherry tomatoes, and even salad dressing (we always keep a bottle of my husband’s family's dressing, a riff on red wine vinaigrette, in the fridge door). Add any tender fresh herbs that might be hiding in the crisper like parsley, mint, basil, or cilantro. It comes together fast so that I can get back to being a human jungle gym!