Chicken Koftas With Lime Couscous Recipe (2024)

Great recipe, quick and easy to follow! My mom makes similar koftas so I appreciate Nik quantifying the ingredients for the recipe! I riffed the koftas a bit: I added paprika, cumin powder, and haldi. I also added a dash of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon (my nana’s trick). I used breadcrumbs to help bind the mixture and baked at 400 degrees. Served with the recipe’s couscous and a simple tahini sauce (tahini, lemon, water, and sugar).

Loved this recipe! Couple of changes: 1) did not use the food processor, just minced the ingredients and combined by hand. I added about a 1/4 c of panko and some cumin. baked them at 425 for about 15-17 mins on a lightly greased baking sheet - they turned out perfectly 2) i wish i had more of the cous cous! Light portions for 2 people in my opinion. 3) followed other commenters and added a tahini sauce, and felt like it really brought the dish together.

Excellent flavors. Next time I would probably skip the food processor all together and instead finely chop serrano, garlic, and shallots to form traditional meatballs. Texture was a little too weird after blending ground chicken

This was a hit! The meatballs have great flavor (love the fresh ginger in this) I do recommend baking the meatballs in the oven at 400F for 15-20min rather than frying them in batches on the stove top. I preheated the oven while prepping the ingredients. Using a food processor and baking the meatballs turns this meal into a quick and flavorful weeknight dinner. Served with cucumber red onion salad.

I read the notes and added cumin, Aleppo pepper, and panko breadcrumbs to the meatballs. I didn't mince the meat and I baked them in the oven as suggested by others. I also made a tahini lime yogurt sauce to pull it together. I am mystified by the 25 minute time. What exactly does that mean? It almost took 25 minutes just to assemble the ingredients and mince them. If I had a sous chef, then indeed I could whip this up in 25 minutes.

This is a great recipe! Just don’t process the chicken or turkey. I’m not sure why that was suggested because that would change the texture. Also if you have an air fryer you can use it for the meatballs. Perfectly cooked and crispy.

I always use sunflower oil to pan fry poultry meatballs, and it worked wonderfully with these. The higher smoke point makes it a much better choice than olive oil, and the flavor is less intrusive. I browned the koftas in the pan and finished them off in a 350 degree oven for another few minutes until they were cooked through, since I had to work in batches anyway. Aleppo pepper was absolutely the right choice for the couscous! Lovely flavors all around.

I followed recommendations in the comments and made these modifications with excellent results:-Golden raisins instead of cherries in couscous (what I had on hand) worked great-Put shallot, parsley, chile, and garlic in a food processor to mince. Added to grated garlic, egg, and ground chicken in a bowl to avoid any weird texture. Added 1/4 cup bread crumbs. Baked at 400 degrees for 17 min. -Made tzatziki sauce on the side Great recipe, will definitely keep on hand.

Delicious- though not sure why the recipe uses parsley rather than cilantro. Much tastier with cilantro.

Only made the Couscous portion. Still excellent! Nice and fluffy. Well seasoned.

If you follow the directions exactly you will have a Valentine’s Day disaster!This recipe presumes your ingredients are already chopped, your pine nuts are already toasted...if they aren’t your honey will be starving and irritable!I’d suggest you throw the garlic, ginger & pepper in the food processor for a quick chop instead.The recipe is actually delicious! We used Israeli couscous and loved it.

This recipe just did not work out for me at all - I don't know why because I followed it pretty closely and I like all the ingredients. The salty, spicy, & bitter flavors were all overpowering and didn't mesh. I couldn't taste the more subtle flavors of the ingredients at all and really couldn't taste the dried cranberries, even though I added extra because I like them. Also, prep time was longer than I expected, and cleaning ground raw chicken from the food processor was not enjoyable.

Good to double this recipe if you’re feeding more than two.

Incredible. Made it a bit spicier than it asks for with more crushed red pepper and I did not seed the serrano. Also used golden raisins instead of cherries since I had some sitting around. Will definitely make again, perhaps with a yogurt sauce to cool it down.

Bake and don’t use food processor

Good recipe. As others have commented, a sauce of some type brings this dish together. I didn't have tahini, so I made tzatziki. I also added cumin, cinnamon, paprika, and panko breadcrumbs to the meatball mixture. I made the meatballs about golf ball size and cooked them in the oven on 425* for 10ish minutes. They were cooked through, tender, and delicious.

baked in oven at 425 for 20 mins and doubled recipe of chicken koftes. Added paprika and cumin and did not add bread crumbs -- didnt need it.

Perfect for two. Didn't use a food processor, just chopped everything up. Gonna try mincing dates into the meatball next time and not include the cherries/cranberries! Delicious.

I really liked this, especially the limey couscous. Make sure to add enough salt to the meatballs.

Made as written except I didn't have quite enough parsley. My family loved it. Perfect use for ground poultry.

I made this exactly as directed in recipe. It’s promising but I didn’t live it. I will make again using reviewer’s recommendations

I love this dish and have made it a number of times, but find it a little dry when eating leftovers. I tried adding mango chutney, but that didn’t quite work. Suggestions?

I add peas to the couscous for a vegetable and to stretch—delicious!

Make the koftas flatter so that they cook more evenly. Use 2 pans so they all fit. Double the amount of couscous mixture and make sure you use actual couscous instead of pearl. Use 2 jalapenos instead of a serrano

I read a lot of the notes, I did end up adding some Panko to the meatballs to make them more sturdy, because I did not put them in the processor. But I followed everything else according to the recipe, and this was delicious!

Just another note, I would absolutely make this couscous for other meals. Yummy

Agree with the suggestions not to process the chicken. Makes it too sticky, hard to keep the meatballs together. Just use ground chicken

Delicious! I followed the recipe, but did add 1/4 cup of bread crumbs as the chicken was very loose… and I used cilantro instead of parsley, as it’s what i had on hand.. everyone loved the meal. No leftovers!

This was very good with no real changes. I diced fresh thighs, then went to the processor. I add some paunch puran spice mix that I had on hand to the couscous water. I increased then amout of parsley and added some cilantro.

We thought this was delicious. I fried the kefta - yes, it’s messy, but totally worth it. Used chopped pistachios instead of pine nuts and didn’t skip on the pepper. Yum!