This southwest quinoa salad is a vegan dish made in southwest America. Not only packed with flavour, it also comes with a range of benefits. These benefits include omega-3 that lowers your cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Quinoa also contains antioxidants, can prevent damage to the heart and other organs. Quinoa is a great base for salads because it’s nutritious and it soaks up the flavours of the dressing and seasonings. Quinoa is gluten-free, rich in fibre and a great source of protein in vegetarian dishes.
While you'll love making this salad to serve at a party, you'll also enjoy making a batch of this quinoa salad on Sunday and then eat it for lunch during the week. You can divide it into individual meal prep containers for grab and go lunch portions.
Ingredients
- Olive Oil & Garlic: Sauté a little fresh garlic in olive oil to flavour the quinoa as it cooks.
- Quinoa: You can make this salad with white or red quinoa. All quinoa have a nutty, earthy flavour. This flavour is stronger in red quinoa but not as strong in white quinoa. uncooked Red quinoa are oval and flat. Once cooked, they swell to form small spheres that have a soft and chewy texture.
- Vegetable Broth: Cooking the quinoa in vegetable broth instead of water flavours the quinoa as it cooks. It is recommend using low sodium vegetable broth to limit the amount of salt in the finished dish.
- Corn:Its helpful to use canned corn for ease, but fresh boiled corn on the cob or grilled corn on the cob would be delicious. Just slice the kernels off the cob and add them to the salad.
- Black Beans: Full of protein and fibre, they are delicious in this salad.
- Red Bell Pepper: For colour and crunch.
- Green Onions: Their mild onion flavour works perfectly here.
- Fresh Cilantro: goes well with the other salad ingredients, but if you don’t care for it you can leave it out.
- Chili-Lime Dressing: For the dressing you’ll need lime juice, olive oil, honey, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. It’s zesty with just a touch of spice.
How to make the salad
- This is one of our favourite healthy salads because it is so easy to make! Here’s an overview of the recipe steps. Find the full printable recipe with ingredient amounts and instructions in the recipe card below.
- First, rinse the quinoa. Quinoa has a bitter outer coating called saponin that can be easily removed by rinsing the quinoa under running water. Place your quinoa in a fine-mesh sieve and rinse for one minute.
- In a medium saucepan, sauté the minced garlic in the olive oil. Then add the quinoa to the pot along with the vegetable broth and cover the pot. Simmer the quinoa in the broth until all of the liquid has been absorbed, 12-16 minutes.
- While the quinoa cooks, prepare the salad dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients.
- In a large bowl, combine the quinoa with the corn, black beans, chopped bell pepper, green onions and cilantro.
- Finally, pour over the dressing and stir gently until everything is well combined. You can serve the salad immediately or chill it in the refrigerator before serving.