Chicken Tagine with Harissa
The Tesco one-pan kit, rebuilt from scratch — no sachets. Chicken thigh, dried apricots, chickpeas and tomatoes, spiced with a real Tunisian harissa paste plus a tagine blend you keep in a jar. 25 minutes, one pan, ≈ 40 g protein a serving. Related: Dinner, In the larder and fridge, Lunch
Photos
The kit as bought — Tesco “Tagine with Harissa” flavour kit, 37 g, mild, serves 2.
The pack’s own serving suggestion — what the finished dish is meant to look like.
The card: “kit contains” (harissa paste + tagine seasoning), the shopping list, and the original 4 steps.
The cook, mid-way — diced chicken thigh browned in the square grill pan with the harissa coating catching on the ridges. Chickpeas and the chopped dried fruit wait on the counter.
What the kit actually was
The Tesco box held 37 g across two sachets, serving 2, mild heat:
- Harissa paste (65%) — yeast extract, glucose syrup, salt, tomato paste, rapeseed oil, paprika, cayenne, cumin, caraway, red pepper juice, garlic purée, lemon, paprika extract, garlic/coriander/rosemary oils.
- Tagine seasoning (35%) — paprika, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, cayenne, ginger, black pepper, allspice, nutmeg, demerara sugar, salt, tomato powder, onion powder, yeast extract, coriander leaf, garlic powder, turmeric.
Its nutrition, per half-pack: 48 kcal · 2.0 g fat · 4.0 g carbs (2.7 g sugars) · 2.5 g fibre · 2.1 g protein · 2.14 g salt — 36% of the daily reference intake, from the sachet alone. Rebuilding it is how you take that salt back.
Ingredients (serves 2)
| Ingredient | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Boneless chicken thigh fillets | 320 g | diced — thigh, not breast: it survives the simmer |
| Dried apricots | 100 g | roughly chopped; 60–70 g if you want the sugar down |
| Tinned chopped tomatoes | 227 g (1 small tin) | |
| Chickpeas | 120 g drained | ½–⅔ of a 400 g tin |
| Couscous | 1 packet / ~120 g dry | roasted-vegetable flavour in the kit; wholewheat couscous or bulgur is the better swap |
| Olive or rapeseed oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Boiling water | 100 ml | |
| Harissa paste | 1–2 tsp (start at 1) | real Tunisian paste — see the swap section below |
| Tagine seasoning | 1½–2 tsp | your own blend — see the jar section below |
The harissa swap
The planned purchase — Amazon B00HJ710I8, Le Phare du Cap Bon harissa, 3 × 70 g tubes, £4.70 — is the real Tunisian paste: chilli, garlic, caraway, coriander, salt, no sugar syrup, no yeast extract.
Important: the Tesco kit was labelled MILD; Le Phare is genuinely hot. Start with 1 tsp, taste after step 3, then add the second if you want it. A tube keeps for weeks in the fridge once opened, so 3 tubes is a few months of tagine.
For a fridge-harissa you can stir into anything: 1 tsp of the tube + 1 tsp olive oil + a squeeze of lemon + a pinch of cumin, loosened with a spoon of the tomato.
Tagine seasoning — make a jar
The kit’s 35% sachet in hobby quantities. Mix, keep in a sealed jar, use 1½–2 tsp per batch (this makes roughly 4 batches):
| Spice | Amount | |
|---|---|---|
| Paprika | 2 tsp | |
| Ground coriander | 2 tsp | |
| Ground cumin | 1½ tsp | |
| Ground cinnamon | 1 tsp | |
| Ground ginger | 1 tsp | |
| Dried coriander leaf | 1 tsp | |
| Onion powder | 1 tsp | |
| Garlic powder | ½ tsp | |
| Black pepper | ½ tsp | |
| Ground cardamom | ¼ tsp | |
| Cayenne pepper | ¼ tsp | |
| Ground allspice | ¼ tsp | |
| Nutmeg | a pinch | |
| Demerara sugar | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | ½ tsp | |
| Tomato powder (or 1 tsp tomato purée at the pan) | 1 tsp |
Steps
- Oil (1 tbsp) — large pan or grill pan, medium-high. Dice the chicken thighs and brown until golden, ~5 minutes. Don’t crowd the pan; work in two batches if needed.
- Apricots (chopped) + tomatoes (whole tin) + chickpeas (drained) + harissa (1 tsp) + tagine seasoning (1½ tsp). Stir through, scraping the browned bits off the base. Cook until the chicken is cooked through — 5–8 minutes.
- Boiling water (100 ml). Cover and simmer low for 10 minutes, stirring every so often. Taste: now is the moment to add the second teaspoon of harissa or a pinch of salt.
- Couscous per packet, then serve with the tagine spooned over. A spoon of Greek yoghurt on the side is +10 g protein and tames the heat.
Nutrition (estimate)
Per serving, with wholewheat couscous: ≈ 700 kcal · ≈ 40 g protein · ≈ 75 g carbs (≈ 30 g from the apricots) · ≈ 14 g fibre. Calculation from the ingredient list, not a lab figure.
- Protein — chicken ~31 g, chickpeas ~4 g, couscous ~6 g. This is a proper 40 g dinner; it fits the 45–55 g target with a yoghurt side.
- The apricots are the sugar load — 100 g dried apricots is ~60 g carbohydrate, mostly sugar. At 70 g you keep the character of the dish and cut ~9 g sugar a portion. Worth doing if the weekly sugar budget is tight.
- Salt — you now control it. With a real harissa and the blend above you’ll land far below the kit’s 2.14 g a serving. Taste before adding any.
- Swaps (from the box): chicken → vegetables (add a drained tin of chickpeas and a diced aubergine for ~20 g protein a serving) or lamb shoulder, cooked 30 minutes longer.
Notes
- The lesson from the first cook (2026-10-08): Hiro used other harissa paste but skipped the tagine seasoning, and the result was bland. That is the useful finding — the harissa brings heat and colour, but the seasoning blend carries the dish: the cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom and allspice are what make it read as a tagine rather than as spicy tomato chicken. Do not skip the jar blend, and if you are short of time, the harissa alone still needs at least cumin + coriander + cinnamon + sugar to work.
- Batch it — doubles cleanly and reheats better the next day; freezes for a month.
- Works over rice or with a flatbread instead of couscous on a lower-carb day.
- Source: rebuilt from Hiro’s photos of the Tesco kit and his own cook (2026-10-08). The first batch used other harissa and no tagine seasoning.