Quinoa Salad

Quinoa is very versatile, nutritious, and often referred to as a “superfood”. It is a good source of protein and contains all essential amino acids making it a complete protein.  Although quinoa is actually a seed, it is often lumped together in the same food group as grains. Quinoa can substitute rice in many recipes, can be added to chili, and can even be used as a breakfast cereal like you would use oatmeal. My first introduction to quinoa was quinoa salad which is quite convenient to pack up and take to school or work.

Below is the “base” recipe or starting point that can be used to build different flavour profiles with additional ingredients, substitution of ingredients, as well as using a variety of different dressings.

Quinoa Salad

Ingredients 

• 1 cup tri-colour quinoa (approx. 4 cups cooked)
• 1 can(540ml/19fl oz.) of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup diced cucumbers
• 1 cup diced red peppers
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 1 cup quartered cherry tomatoes

Since this is a salad, you could add a dressing if you’d like. My favourite dressing is roasted red pepper based, but you could easily use a variety of other dressings or vinaigrettes with this recipe. You can also add a variety of toppings if you would like. You could add olives, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, red onion etc. depending on the flavours you prefer.

For the roasted red pepper dressing you can use avocados to make the dressing creamy as well as to increase the healthy fat content. You can make it Mexican inspired by adding in fresh lime juice, garlic, salt, pepper, and cilantro. You could also spice it up by adding in some cumin and chipotle pepper. With these ingredients I typically just eyeball the amount or just add them to taste.

This recipe with or without dressing can be a complete meal, but could also be used as a side dish.