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- I could really eat this Mediterranean quinoa salad all day long. It's loaded with veggies, plant-based protein, and that bright, fresh flavor that I always crave. You guys know that I love Mediterranean food, and both my Mediterranean chickpea salad and lentil salad have been reader favorites for years, but today's salad swaps in quinoa as the base while maintaining all of that bright flavor from the crisp vegetables, fresh herbs, and my go-to lemon vinegarette. This is an easy and durable salad and it has quickly become my go-to meal prep salad for the week. So let me show you how to make it. To get started, you'll cook the quinoa,
so add one cup of rinsed quinoa and two cups of water to a medium pot over medium-high heat. I'm using tricolor quinoa, but any color works just fine. Bring that to a boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Cover the pot and continue simmering it for about 15 minutes or until the quinoa has absorbed all of the water. As you can see here, the quinoa is now fully cooked, but you'll wanna remove the pot from the heat and then keep it covered for another five minutes or so, as this allows the quinoa to steam and get nice and fluffy. To cool the quinoa more quickly for this salad, spread it out on a sheet pan.
This is the same method I mentioned in my "Healthy Meal Prep" cookbook for meal prepping rice and other grains, and the goal here is to cool it quickly to prevent any bacteria from growing before using it in the salad or storing it away in the fridge. For the veggies in this salad, I'm going after all of the color because is it really a Mediterranean recipe if there's not a rainbow of color? I think not. So grab two bell peppers, and you can use any color. Then remove the seeds, slice them into strips, and then slice across for a small dice.
You'll notice as I slice up all of these veggies that the goal here is to chop everything quite small in uniform. That's by design so that you get a balanced bite with every flavor and texture and every spoonful as you enjoy the salad. For the onion in this salad, I love to use red onion, so I'll dice up 1/2 of a red onion. You could also slice up green onion or even finely diced shallot and add it to this quinoa salad. I think the biggest takeaway is that this recipe is highly versatile, so really, feel free to use up what you might have in your fridge.
Next, dice up one English cucumber, and I prefer English cucumbers over garden cucumbers as they have a thinner skin that you don't need to peel. So just go ahead and slice that up, then stack a few slices on top of each other and slice across in one direction, then the other direction for the perfect small dice. Now, this is how I've always diced up cucumber, but if you have another method, I'm all ears, and let me know in the comments below. A fresh veggie forward salad like this always benefits from having freshly chopped herbs, so roughly chop up 1/2 a cup of flat-leaf parsley.
All of the slicing and prep work is now done, and then all that's left to do is combine everything together. So add the cooled quinoa to a salad bowl, then top with the red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, cucumber, and red onion. For a briny touch, I love to add a 1/4 cup of capers. And the great thing is there's no chopping necessary. You just have to drain them and add them to the salad. And the last ingredient before we add the dressing is four ounces of feta cheese. I prefer to buy a block of feta then crumble it myself rather than buying those pre-crumbled containers of feta. But again, you do you.
You could even swap in goat cheese here if you'd like. Give that a quick stir to combine the ingredients and then set it aside so that you can make my lemon vinegarette recipe. I use this vinaigrette on so many different salads and it's the perfect accompaniment to this quinoa salad. To make it, add 1/3 cup of olive oil to a bowl or small jar, along with a 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, 1/2 a teaspoon of honey, one minced garlic clove, and some salt and pepper to taste. A few months ago I bought a set of these small glass jars, and I have been loving them for making salad dressings,
as you can easily shake all of the ingredients together to emulsify the dressing. I'll link them below, but you could always just whisk all of the ingredients together in a bowl as well. Then lastly, pour the dressing onto the salad. You can add as much or as little as you'd like. I usually add about 1/2 to 3/4 of the dressing and then save the rest of it for other salads throughout the week. This salad is light yet hearty with all of that plant-based protein, and it hits the perfect balance of fresh, bright, briny, and satisfying.
I have been eating this salad on repeat the last few months as it's easy to make and makes me feel good, and I'll talk about a few ways that you can customize it when I take my bite here in a second. But again, this is a great potluck salad and meal-prep-friendly salad as it's highly durable and will last for four to five days in the fridge. It is such a light and fresh salad, which is perfect on a sunny day like we have today. The salad itself is bright and, like, sunkissed and just packed with so much flavor. You get a little bit of brininess from the capers.
You just get that sweet juiciness from the cucumber and the bell pepper, and the quinoa gives it that hearty, plant-based protein. Or alternatively, you can add some extra protein to it to just really pack it into a full meal kind of salad rather than a side salad. I love to add baked chicken to this. I have a recipe for herb-baked chicken. They're chicken breasts, and I will cook those very quickly in the oven, dice them up, and add it to this for a little bit more hearty flavor. If I'm doing this as a potluck salad or a barbecue salad, I will often add my garlic grilled shrimp skewers. That is perfect as well.
You can either leave them whole, you can get mini ones, you can slice 'em up. There's so much you can do with this. And I also love to add avocado to this. I did leave the avocado off of the main recipe because I want it to be a meal-prep-friendly salad recipe that is durable and will last for several days in the fridge without browning. As is, this will last for about four to five days in the fridge. Avocado obviously doesn't last as long in the fridge, so I will usually add about 1/4 of an avocado, just dice that up really quickly, I'll add some B-roll footage here, to an individual portion as I eat it throughout the week.
I hope you guys enjoy today's recipe and video for quinoa salad. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. Let me know what you would add to it, if anything, in the comments below. And again, this is just the perfect salad for spring and as we head into summer. It's light and fresh, and I cannot wait to hear what you guys think of it. (upbeat music)
