Quinoa salad with vegetables and chickpeas
If I have one more quinoa salad that has nuts and dried fruit, or black beans and corn, just shoot me (and yes, I’m sure I have some of those on this very blog!). I just feel like I always know exactly what those salads are going to taste like before I try them. Plus they can be pretty carb-heavy when quinoa is the main ingredient.
I’ve been trying to pack more vegetables into every meal, so today I flipped the usual quinoa salad equation: this one is mostly vegetables; the quinoa plays more of a supporting role. For the vegetables, I went with radicchio, carrots, roasted red peppers and scallions. With protein in the form of chickpeas and pine nuts, plus olives and a tangy lemon-mustard vinaigrette, this dish is both nutritious and unexpected. My faith in quinoa salads has been restored!
P.S. This makes a large batch, so it’s a perfect dish for a party, or for lunches all week. Feel free to add more quinoa to stretch it even further – it’s good that way, too.
2 cups cooked quinoa
1 can organic chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 large head radicchio, cored and thinly sliced
3 scallions, sliced
6-8 large pitted green or black olives, sliced
2 carrots, thinly sliced, preferably with a mandoline
1 stalk celery, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 large roasted red peppers, chopped (homemade better but jarred ok, too)
2-3 tablespoons roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
¼ cup pine nuts, toasted (can substitute chopped toasted almonds)
Dressing:
1 tablespoons Dijon mustard
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
zest of one organic lemon
¼ teaspoon salt, or more to taste
Generous amount of freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Place the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk together the mustard, lemon juice, zest, salt and pepper, then slowly whisk in the olive oil. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well. Serve at room temperature.
Serves 8-12 as a side dish
Thank you. This is so timely. I was thinking about a light, cold supper for this evening and wanted to use up the chickpeas and roasted red peppers in my fridge — have also been craving Quinoa, and here this lovely recipe arrives in my mail box. I love these kinds of serendipitous gifts.
I hear ya about corn. Please stop putting corn in every fricken thing!! Except corn tortillas, corn flakes etc… Who ever heard of corn in your burritos? Or corn in your rice? bleaagh! That’s double the starch!
Dear Cathy, my name is Alejandro from Argentina. I´m Flor´s boyfriend. I was staying at your beautiful house one year ago for two weeks. I became a big fan of your recipes. I tryed the quinoa salad and it ´s delicious. I didn´t have one ingrendient, the chickpeas. But we loved it anyway. Keep doing what you are doing, please!!!
Best,
Ale
Hi Cathy. This recipe looks delicious! Thank you for an easy refreshing recipe. We still have some quinoa waiting in the pantry. Will definitely give this a try and maybe add some sweet raisins or dried apricots too.
Thanks again!
Thank you so much, Cathy. I am glad I stumbled upon your website. This will be a perfect recipe for a satisfying dinner on a hot, summer night. The only thing I will leave out is the olives – or serve them on the side for picky eaters who don’t appreciate olives. And thanks also for suggesting to substitute slivered almonds for the pine nuts.