Cold Quinoa Salad

February 7, 2017 SouthAmerica

Every time we cook quinoa we make a medium-sized pot, so we can use hot fresh quinoa the first day and refrigerate the leftover to use over the week. Quinoa provides an ideal substitute for rice. Quinoa is rich in protein content, making it great for a quick salad. While making cold quinoa salad its best to add as much color as you can; such as red from bell pepper, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and radish, yellow colors from yellow pepper and corn kernels, green colors from green bell pepper, cucumber, and celery, and in the orange range one can use orange bell pepper and carrots, also if you like you could add black olives. Try accommodating whatever is available using the ingredients that you already have at home. I used habanero thinly sliced once to add some orange color and it added a lot of hot spice to it!

In this case I am using what I had at this time, we served it as a side dish.

Cold Quinoa Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked quinoa

½ cup cut up cucumber

½ cup cut up celery

½ cup cut up cherry tomatoes

1 small size carrot cut up in thin rounds

6 sprigs of parsley finely chopped

Olive Oil

Lime Juice

Salt and Pepper

Preparation:

In a big bowl place the quinoa first and then add the cucumber, celery, cut up tomatoes, carrots, and gently mix while adding seasoning of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to your liking.

If using the quinoa for a cold lunch salad follow the recipe as showed above , but I also like to add more protein to it to make it more filling, which could include black beans, chickpeas, hard boiled eggs, or you can add slices of meat.