Quinoa is the worst word. For so long I thought it was pronounced Quin-ow-uh but then I learned it's keen-wah and I wanted to cringe at the times I semi-pretentiously said it incorrectly.
Anywho, it is stupid to pronounce and can be stupid delicious when prepared the right way. I'm always on the look out for healthy lunches I can prepare ahead of time. My go to is usually Manifest Vegan's sweet potato and cauliflower soup but looking for a change of pace (and realizing I had four bags of quinoa in my pantry) I decided to try out a quinoa salad.
After spending quite a bit of time Googling and Pinteresting (are those officially verbs yet?) vegetarian quinoa salads with calorie counts, I got frustrated and decided to just somewhat wing it. I cooked the quinoa based on this recipe--subbing vegetable stock for chicken stock.
While the quinoa was cookin' I chopped up some veggies to toss into my salad. Asparagus, zucchini, broccoli, garlic, red bell pepper, and tomatoes (fresh from our garden!). I sautéed most of these delicious green beasts in a large frying pan with a spritz of Trader Joe's coconut oil cooking spray. I've been trying to stay away from added salt and sugar-heavy sauces. The more I stay away from those things, the more garlic I use. I left the tomatoes raw since I don't care for them when they are soggy.
Red onion, always and forever. Rhyno and I add red onion to EVERYTHING. I steamed the red onions and asparagus together--I loved all of the different textures together.
Final conclusion? DELICIOUS! I snuck a test bite before packaging my salad for the week's lunches and it was amazing. I drizzled a little bit of lemon juice over the salad with a pinch of black pepper and I was not disappointed. I loved the contrast between slightly spicy quinoa and fresh veggies. This recipe is going into my weekly lunch rotation immediately!
What's your favorite quick n' healthy lunch?
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You look so pretty today.