Roasted butternut squash, cous cous and goats cheese salad

So, you’ve probably realised from my recent blog posts that I’m pretty into cooking my vegetables and salads at the moment. What can I say? It’s so much nicer outside that I want to make the most of it and not feel too heavy in my summer clothes. Now this salad had me sitting at work musing over ingredients and what to put into the salad and what to roast for a good portion of the morning while I was at work (to be fair I was sticking labels on eppendorf tubes at the time). What I do love about this salad is how colourful it turned out. I think the most important thing with cooking healthier meals is making them look appealing so you actually want to eat them.

This salad has a variety of different textures due to the roast vegetables, the raw vegetables, the cous cous and the pumpkin seeds. Every bite will taste slightly different. I used giant cous cous but normal cous cous would be just as good (If you’re a fan of neither rice or pasta is fine).

To make this salad you need:

1/3 of a butternut squash

A pepper

Approx 150g cous cous

1/2 a cucumber

2 large handfuls spinach

3 spring onions

1 handful pumpkin seeds

Approx 75g goats cheese (or if you hate it use chicken or another type of cheese)

Chilli flakes

A pinch of salt

Olive oil

Preheat your oven to 200°C. Peel and chop the butternut squash into bite sized pieces and chop up your pepper. Put on a roasting tray, sprinkle with chilli flakes and roast for about 15 minutes or until the squash is soft.

During this time cook the cous cous according the instructions on the packet. Once cooked drizzle in olive oil, and season with the salt and chilli flakes.

Remove the vegetables from the oven and allow them to cool slightly.

Chop the cucumber and spring onion and add to the salad along with the pumpkin seeds. Toss the salad.

Add the spinach and toss the salad again.

Top the salad with the goats cheese and serve.

DSCN0895 — I need to insert a cheese themed joke here…answers on a postcard?

Enjoy your salad as an evening meal or make your work colleagues a little bit jealous of your salad making expertise by taking it for lunch and eating it cold the following day.