This fresh and light salad is nutritious and tasty and endlessly adaptable. Start with quinoa and vegetables and add in a spritz of lemon, your choice of chopped herbs and garnish with your favourite nuts, seeds or fruits. It is a doddle to make and stands up well to being carted around in Tupperware so it makes the perfect picnic food or lunch at the office.
Put the quinoa, water, stock powder and garlic into a pan. Bring to the boil then turn the heat down to low, put the lid on and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes until the water has been absorbed and the quinoa has only a slight bite to it.
80 g quinoa, 160 ml water, 1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder, 2 garlic cloves
Meanwhile, finely dice the vegetables, chop the herbs and juice the lemon.
½ red onion, ¼ cucumber, ½ red pepper, 2 tablespoon fresh mint, 2 tablespoon fresh parsley, ½ lemon (juice only)
When the quinoa is cooked through, drain any excess water (if any) and mix it together with all the other ingredients in a bowl! Season to taste with salt and pepper.
2-3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper
Fry the pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan until they start to pop. (Keep a very close eye on this as it happens quite quickly and will burn if you don’t remove it fairly promptly). Then pour the toasted pumpkin seeds over the top of the salad.
10 g pumpkin seeds
Notes
This is a very adaptable recipe. I sometimes add cherry tomatoes, halved, or pomegranate seeds, or pine nuts or sunflower seeds in place of the pumpkin seeds. It is also delicious served with a dollop of yoghurt with a little harissa stirred into it.
During lockdown, when I was not going to the shops so often, I started trying to preserve my fresh herbs by whizzing them in a blender with olive oil. Depending on the herb (parsley and chives work particularly well), the herb oil keeps quite nicely in a jar in the fridge for a week or so. I now rather like it for its ease of use so I often substitute the oil and fresh parsley for my herb oil instead.