Zesty Tagine
‘WOW…. What can we say? Absolutely fabulous. We had the Moroccan tagine stew… Wish we lived nearer. Thank you so much… An absolute delight!!’
Claire S, Manchester; Food Customer
Table of Contents
✨ Before We Begin…
This bright tagine swaps heavy stews for roasted cauliflower, squash, and chickpeas. It’s light, textural, and full of flavour.
‘Must be best food offer, of any genre, in Kendal. Hugely accomplished cooking and very much recommended.’
Tony P, Kendal; Food Customer
The Cook’s Mind
What This Recipe Helps You Practise
- Roasting squash and cauliflower for bite.
- Balancing spice with ginger and lemon.
- Making a slurry to thicken sauces.
- Layering herbs for flavour and garnish.
- Cooking cous cous as a buttery base.
Make-Ahead
- Can be made earlier in the day and reheated.
- Roasted veg keep their texture if not overcooked.
Freezer-Friendly
- Freezes well, though herbs are best fresh.
- Add almonds on the day for crunch.
Key Substitutions
- Cauliflower: use broccoli for a different bite.
- Squash: use sweet potato though it cooks quicker.
Cooking Parlance
- Tagine: North African stew, often slow-cooked with spices.
- Slurry: mixture of starch and water to thicken sauces.
Ingredient Focus
✨ Cauliflower — light and textural.
To Ingredient Focus: Cauliflower
Serving Suggestions
- Serve over buttery cous cous.
- Top with flaked almonds and herbs.
- Add green beans for freshness.
Multi-Purpose Recipe
This recipe has more than one life…
- Turn into a wrap filling.
- Serve cold as a salad with cous cous.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Quick to prepare with no long simmering.
- Freezer-friendly and travel-friendly.
- Fresh herbs and lemon lift every bite.
Watch It Being Made
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Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Handpicked to Go With This One
A few recipes that play well together — flavour friends, not just neighbours.
- Spiced Red Lentil Koftas with Harissa Mayo
- Malaysian Lemongrass and Ginger Curry
- Perfectly Cooked Rice
- Nepalese Dhal
- Blessed Vegan Garlic Bread – Cooking Hacks To Up Your Game
Waste Less: How To Use Up Your Ingredient Stash!
Got something spare — a handful, a spoonful, or the end of a packet? These tags help you find other ways to use it. It’s a small step toward cooking intuitively and wasting less ❣️
chickpeas, flaked almonds, fresh ginger, fresh herbs, fresh parsley, green beans, ground coriander, lemon, red onion, squash, turmeric
Zesty Tagine Recipe
Zesty Tagine
Bright, light, and full of texture, this tagine swaps heavy stews for roasted cauliflower, squash, and chickpeas. Pan-cooked and ready without long simmering, it’s great for make-ahead meals or travel.
Photographed truthfully. If you cook it, yours will look like mine.
Ingredients
Ingredients for the tagine
- 200 g squash | peeled weight
- 30 ml olive oil
- 1 pinch salt
- 125 g cauliflower florets
- 180 g red onions | unpeeled weight
- 3 cloves fresh garlic
- 10 ml olive oil
- 1 pinch salt
- 20 g fresh ginger | unpeeled weight
- ½ tbsp turmeric
- ½ tsp ground coriander
- 7 g cornflour | for cornflour slurry
- 7 ml water | for cornflour slurry
- 7 ml lemon juice
- 200 g chickpeas | including all the aqua faba inside the can
Other ingredients
- 1 flat leaf parsley | small handful
- 1 fresh coriander | small handful
- 1 unwaxed lemon
To serve
- cous cous | hot with some vegan butter melted and stirred through
- fresh chopped herbs
- flaked almonds | toasted
- green beans
- salt | to taste
- ground black pepper | to taste
Instructions
Prepare the squash and cauliflower
- Prepare the squash: peel and chop the squash into bite-sized chunks.200 g squash
- Warm the oil in a frying pan ready to pan-fry the squash. Add the squash to the frying pan with the salt. Pan-fry on a medium heat to add colour to the diced squash.30 ml olive oil, 1 pinch salt
- Cut the cauliflower into small florets.125 g cauliflower florets
Keeping cooking squash; prepare the holy trinity
- Keep cooking the squash: you will see that the squash is caramelising on the outside. Keep an eye on it and also poke it with a sharp knife to gain an understanding of having firm but cooked squash.
- Add the cauliflower pieces: jiggle around the pan and cook. It is important to char the veggies but to keep bite for texture in the finished dish. When ready, tip into a container with a lid on. Err on 'slightly under-cooked' at this stage.
- Peel and chop the onion into slimmish petals, 2cm wide; peel and slice the garlic.180 g red onions, 3 cloves fresh garlic
Cook the holy trinity; add the spices
- Warm the oil in the pan that you cooked the squash and cauliflower in and cook the onion petals. Add a pinch of salt to stop the burn.10 ml olive oil, 1 pinch salt
- When the onion starts to become translucent, add the garlic slices and grate the ginger into the pan and continue to cook on a low-medium heat.20 g fresh ginger
- When the onion, garlic and ginger mix is caramelised and the onions are translucent, mix the turmeric and ground coriander together and then add to the pan. Keep your pan on the heat if it's low and you feel in control but take it off if you like. Add a splash of water to ensure the spices don't dry out.½ tbsp turmeric, ½ tsp ground coriander
Make the sauce; add the veg
- Make a cornflour and water together.7 g cornflour, 7 ml water
- To the pan, add the lemon juice and stir a little, then add the chickpeas and the aqua faba, then add the cornflour to thicken on a simmer.Mush some of the chickpeas with the back of spoon to add more texture and get the flavour out of some of the chickpeas.7 ml lemon juice, 200 g chickpeas
- Tip in the prepared and cooked cauliflower and squash, and heat through.
- Stir the tagine on a low heat, allowing the flavours to develop.
- Chop a small handful each of flat leaf coriander and parsley and stir through the tagine. Leave some to dress the dish.1 flat leaf parsley, 1 fresh coriander
- Chop a wedge of lemon ready to dress the dish and squeeze the juice from half a lemon into the pan, or add a tablespoon of lemon juice. Grate the zest of the lemon into the pan.1 unwaxed lemon
Plate! Eat!
- Serve the tagine on top of buttery cous cous (see the Notes for a recipe), dress with herbs and flaked almonds which I dry-toasted in a fry pan for a couple of minutes to add colour and crunch. Green beans on the side are perfect texturally and from a looks point of view.cous cous, fresh chopped herbs, flaked almonds, green beans, salt, ground black pepper
Notes
- Multi-purpose: serve as a main or side.
- Freezer-friendly: allow to cool, put into a container with a tight lid, and freeze. The cauliflower will be ok when you re-heat it. But not really good because it’s a fairly watery vegetable (see Make-ahead below). Freezing will intensify the flavour.
- Make-ahead: if you are making ahead, don’t add the squash or cauliflower. Add those when serving the dish. Or if using frozen cauliflower, wait until the sauce cools and add the frozen chunks, or leave the frozen chunks out of it until you serve the sauce.
- Any remaining herbs, chop up and put into storage boxes and pop into the fridge. I find supermarket herbs prepped and stored this way last a fair few days.
- Buttery cous cous: take 100g of raw cous cous per person, add 200ml of boiling water with 1/2 a stock cube fully dissolved in, and then simply put the water over the cous cous, mix and leave. It will do it’s thing. Cooking cous cous is unnecessary. I used to add vegan butter to mine, just a knob of it as I sent it out during service; it added a sense of luxury and care. Make cous cous early in the day and reheat in the microwave. Just fork it through.
Nutrition
Calories: 474kcalCarbohydrates: 63gProtein: 14gFat: 22gSaturated Fat: 3gPolyunsaturated Fat: 3gMonounsaturated Fat: 14gSodium: 78mgPotassium: 1168mgFiber: 15gSugar: 14gVitamin A: 10781IUVitamin C: 93mgCalcium: 169mgIron: 6mg
Nutritional values are estimates only and will vary depending on specific ingredients used. Nutrition is per serving. Information is for the main recipe, not optional accompaniments.
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