Colourful Quinoa Salad | Meal Prep | Summer BBQ

I love this quinoa salad recipe! This colourful quinoa salad is the perfect side dish for a summer barbecue and is perfect for taking to a summer party or get together.

It is packed with fresh ingredients, such as yellow peppers, juicy tomatoes and avocado, and some lovely fresh coriander! I also add some black beans for an extra nutritional boost! Any leftovers of this colourful quinoa salad can be packed into lunch boxes for school, university or work.

A colourful and healthy salad!

Red onion, yellow pepper, black beans, red tomatoes, and green avocado – this quinoa salad is marvelously colourful and packs a nutritional punch combining protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats!

Quinoa takes a while to cook, but you can use the cooking time to prepare your other ingredients.

I absolutely love black beans! If you haven´t tried them before, I can highly recommend them! They are a great addition to salads or chillis and are a nice change from the usual kidney beans. I also use black beans in this mixed bean chilli recipe – so why not give it a try?

In my opinion, adding some fresh coriander (or cilantro as it is known in the US) takes this quinoa salad to the next level (I LOVE coriander). However, I know it is not to everyone´s taste, so feel free to leave it out or to replace it with fresh parsley or any other herb of your choosing.

Make this Quinoa Salad for Meal Prep

Quinoa salad not only tastes great but it is really healthy and is perfect for meal prep and packed lunches, as it keeps well in the fridge for a few days.

The recipe below is enough to make about 4 servings. You could serve it as a side dish with dinner (these easy BBQ lamb kebabs would go really well with it) and keep any leftovers for lunch the following day.
Or simply make it for meal prep, and spoon it into 4 plastic containers for lunch that week! This Quick Couscous Salad is also great for a healthy lunch or meal prep!

Colourful Quinoa Salad

Recipe

Ingredients (serves 4):

FOR THE SALAD

• 150g quinoa
• 1 tsp chicken/vegetable stock powder (or 1 stock cube)
• 400ml boiling water
• 1-2 large salad tomatoes
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 red onion
• 240g (drained weight, i.e. 1 tin) black beans
• 1 avocado
• fresh coriander

FOR THE DRESSING

• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Add the quinoa to a medium saucepan, pour over the boiling water, add in the chicken stock powder or cube and stir until dissolved. Place over a medium heat and simmer for about 20-25 minutes with the lid half covering the pot.
2. In the meantime, finely chop the red onion and add to a large salad bowl.
3. Then cut the tomatoes, yellow pepper and avocado into small chunks and add them to the bowl.
4. Drain the black beans, but don´t rinse them. Simply add to the salad bowl with some of their juices, they will simply become part of the dressing.
5. Finally, wash and chop the fresh coriander if using. Add the coriander to the other ingredients.
6. After 20-25 minutes the quinoa should have absorbed all the water and be fully cooked. Taste if it is cooked and if not add a little more water. Continue doing so until the quinoa is cooked.
7. Remove the cooked quinoa from the heat and leave to cool slightly.
8. Whilst the quinoa is cooling, make the dressing. In a small bowl mix together the lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and chilli powder. Add some salt and pepper and mix. At this stage just add a little and you can choose to add more once the salad is dressed.
9. Add the cooled quinoa to the salad bowl containing all the other ingredients. Pour over the dressing and stir until everything is well combined. Taste and season to perfection with some more salt and pepper.