Quinoa Salad

This is a feather we added to our Health section to post original recipes that we prepared ourselves and experimented with an aim of bringing recipes to you that are nutritious, healthy and tasty, and easy to prepare. A common myth is that vegetarian/vegan food means compromising taste. We want to prove them wrong, these recipes will prove that ‘Healthy does not mean bland.’

To begin with, our first recipe is quinoa salad. Quinoa salad is easy to prepare, nutritious and good protein source that can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. We chose quinoa because it is easy to cook and high in protein. Except quinoa, rest all ingredients are in raw form, which keeps their nutrition complete.

Ingredients:

Quinoa: 1 cup

Red tomato: 1 medium size

White Onion: 1 small size

Celery: 2 long sticks

Green chili: 3

English walnuts: 1/4^th cup

Lemon: 1 medium size

Cilantro: half bunch

Olive oil: 2 spoons

Salt: user preference

Ground pepper: freshly crushed (user preference)

Preparation:

1) Most of the packed quinoa products are pre washed and can be cooked directly. If you have purchased loosely, wash it thoroughly.

2) Add 2 cups of water to quinoa and put it on stove to max heat. Add 1 spoon of olive oil and salt. Do not cover with lid and let the contents boil.

3) Chop – tomato, onion, chili, cilantro, celery and walnuts into small pieces. Don’t mix them, keep all separately.

4) Keep an eye on quinoa and occasionally stir the contents

5) Let the contents cook for 10 mins and turn the heat to very low.

6) Cook for 5 more minutes. You should see quinoa cooked and fluffy.

7) Remove from stove and let it cool down for few minutes

Add quinoa into serving dish and start adding veggies layer by layer.

9) My order of preference– Celery, green chilies, onions, tomato, walnuts and finally arrange finely chopped cilantro on it.

10) Squeeze lemon all over it, add some raw olive oil and ground pepper as dressing.

Quinoa salad is ready to be served. Optionally, mung bean sprouts and boiled black eyed peas can be added as an extra layer. It tastes good, try it. Let us know if you like this recipe, more recipes will be added, share any modifications you made to this recipe. Your comments are welcome