Israeli Couscous Salad

Couscous-

• 1 cup pearl couscous
• ¼ cup chickpeas canned chickpeas works too, cooked
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 2 tablespoons onion finely chopped
• 1 ½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil EVOO
• 1 ½ cups water use vegetable stock for vegetarian option, or stock

For Salad-

• 8 oz cherry tomato halved
• 2 cucumber diced, small
• ¼ red onion diced
• 1 cup baby spinach finely sliced
• ½ cup parsley or cilantro, chopped
• ½ cup mint chopped, fresh
• 3 green onions chopped fine, stalks
• 1 jalapeños chopped fine (reduce it to half if you don’t want too spicy and remove seeds)

For Lemon Salad Dressing-

• ⅓ cups extra-virgin olive oil use best quality, EVOO
• 1 lemon zest
• 1 lemon juice freshly squeezed
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper