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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

This was a hit. Followed recipe pretty closely for first try. Not sure I'd change much - liked the crispiness from pan frying vs. baking. Did put everything in food processor first without chicken to chop it small. Then brief processing of chicken. Really wet meatballs but turned out to be great texture after cooking even without breadcrumbs added. Couscous was a bit dry, but likely had my measurements off a bit, so added some oil when serving. Definitely will make this again.

This is one of the few recipes that failed. Kofta needed more spice and cous cous was dry as a bone! Made tzatziki as suggested in notes, thankfully!, and baked the kofta instead of frying. Also added some panko bread crumbs to kofta. Doubt i will follow this recipe again.

Good but not great. Made as per recipe, and was happy with the texture of the meatballs. Good flavors overall, just eats dry. Definitely improved with a lime-pomegranate molasses tahini sauce for me & a quick gravy for family members who are not lovers of tahini. It would certainly be easy to swap in different herbs & spices if desired. Will make again.

Delicious but definitely not a 25 minute meal. I used the food processor to chop everything but the chicken. I would add more cherries and pine nuts for more texture but overall a delicious recipe.

I realized at the last second that I was out of couscous so I tried to substitute with israeli couscous. Do not do this. Kofta were great, though. I did not add panko and they were just fine without.

Very good. I chopped the aromatics for the kofta in a mini processor, and added it to the chicken (turkey) and egg. Added 1/4 cup breadcrumbs. mixed by hand. Baked them in a baking dish, with the meatballs touching, at 450 degrees for 25 min. Subbed chopped dried apricots and pistachios in the pilaf.

Just process shallots, serano and parsley in food processor. Add to chicken with 1/4 cup panko, cumin and paprika. Bake at 400

Made according to directions, and after cooking a tester meatball in a pan (which you should always do to help dial in flavors before making the whole batch!) the meatball seemed too wet and dense. Added 1/2 cup of panko and some cumin to the remaining meatballs and they were fantastic. The couscous was great. Next time I'd increase the parsley and raisins, plus add a yogurt sauce on the side.

I used ground turkey, and as with a similar NY Times recipe, a mixture of parsley and cilantro, which are wonderful combined.

Nice easy Mediterranean meal. Good flavor. Suggest adding cumin, paprika and cinnamon for more flavor. Little Taziki sauce on the side and even some kalmatta olives make a nice addition.

These were very good but not fast. Chicken meatball mix was very wet despite my adding panko. Baked as per other people’s recommendations and they were very flavorful tho not round. I made them ahead, froze them for 2 days, thawed in refrigerator and reheated them in a foil covered pan at 350 while making couscous. Also made both yogurt and tahini sauce. Everyone enjoyed them.

This was delicious! I didn’t have enough pine nuts, so I used chopped almonds. I liked the almond addition better than the pine nuts. I did double the dish and luckily have lots of leftovers. I also didn’t use the food processor. As others commented, I agree that it would benefit from a sauce, although I might prefer a little lemon yogurt on the side as opposed to a thinner tahini sauce.

The texture of ground turkey and chicken available in grocery chains doesn't require further puree. I hand-mixed the ginger, salt, shallots (or 1+ tsp Penzey's air-dried shallot powder in a pinch), parsley, salt and pepper - plus 1/4 cup panko) in the 1 lb meat tray and refrigerated for an hour or two. Omitted the serrano in the meat to balance the het of the couscous, which was plenty warm but a bit too tart for my taste. Add golden raisins for sweetness with fresh parsley (a must) for serving.

I made this pretty much according to the recipe. It was very good however I decided as mentioned by others to cook the meat balls in the oven rather than on the stove top. They were very flavorful but dry. I will try ground chicken or turkey next time. The dried cherries and lime zest really amped up the couscous.

Made as written except only added 1/3 of one seeded Serrano as making for my young kids. The couscous was 11/10, definitely double it. The meatballs were 4/5 but my husband and 3yo and 5yo loved them so I’ll give full points. I served them with a tzatziki sauce. Highly recommend!