QUINOA SALAD | easy recipe with light lemon dressing

Hello my friends, it's Dani and I know how much you all enjoy quinoa recipes. So today I'm sharing one of my new favorites. It's an easy quinoa salad made with asparagus, chickpeas, and feta cheese. Now the first thing I like to do is cook the quinoa. Unlike most grains, quinoa actually cooks very quickly and that is because it is technically a seed. So here's how you cook quinoa. I'm going to rinse one cup of quinoa in a fine mesh strainer under some cold water for about 30 seconds or so. You just want to rinse the quinoa until the water is running clear and you don't see any little foamy bubbles over the top. Then I'm going to add the quinoa to a small saucepan along with two cups of cold water. I'll turn the heat up to high, let everything come up to a boil, and then I'm going to reduce the heat and let this simmer for about 15 minutes partially covered. You're going to know your quinoa is ready to go because all of the water is going to be absorbed. You're going to see these little tiny white rings around each quinoa seed. That is the germ of the quinoa. That means the quinoa has popped. And from here I just like to fluff the quinoa and then I'm going to set that aside to cool while I make the asparagus. Now you could steam your asparagus for this recipe, but I really love the depth of flavor that you get when you roast the asparagus. It just works perfectly in this salad. So the first thing I'm going to do is trim off the woodsy ends of my asparagus and then I will lay this onto a rimmed baking sheet and season it very simply with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roll those around a bit. You just want each asparagus spear to have a nice light coating of the seasonings and then I will pop this into a 425 degree oven anywhere between 8 and 10 minutes. Now you can see my asparagus spears were a medium thickness and they took about 8 minutes to cook. If your asparagus was very thick, it might take a little bit longer. On the flip side, if it was very thin, it might take a little bit shorter. Okay, so the asparagus looks perfect. It's nice and tender. And once it's cool enough to handle, I just like to cut the asparagus spears into one inch pieces. You just want to cut them small enough so that when you're eating your salad, you don't have to cut them up to enjoy them. Now for the salad dressing, we are keeping this super simple. This is a really light and bright lemony dressing. I love to make my salad dressings in a spouted cup like I have here, but you could also do this in a bowl or a mason jar depending on what you have on hand and of course what you prefer. So I'm going to start with a quarter cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice, which is nice and light and bright. And then I have two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Two cloves of fresh squeezed garlic, nice and fine, and then some sea salt and some black pepper. I'm going to whisk that all together and then I'm ready to assemble the salad. Okay, so into a nice large bowl, I'm going to add my cooled quinoa. And then on top of that, we're going to add that roasted asparagus. Then I have a 15 ounce can of garbanzo beans, also known as chickpeas, which I've drained and rinsed under some cold water. And then I have a quarter cup of thinly sliced scallions. And remember, when you're working with scallions, as long as they're nice and bright and fresh, you can use the entire scallion, the bottom part, which is white, and then the green tops as well. I'm going to drizzle my dressing right over the top and then I'm going to gently toss this all together. And then I love to add some fresh crumbled feta cheese. Keep in mind, whenever you can buy your feta cheese in block form and crumble it yourself, you're going to get the best flavor and the best texture. And then I have a couple tablespoons of fresh chopped mint, which could also be parsley. The fresh herbs are optional, but I love adding some fresh herbs to salads because they really do bring a whole other layer of flavor to the salad that cannot be beat. I'm going to toss this one last time, get everything worked in, make sure all of those ingredients are well incorporated, and then I will gently transfer this into a serving bowl. And then I love to top it with just a little bit more of that feta cheese right over the top and one more sprinkle of the fresh mint. This is a beautiful, bright, vibrant salad that is super easy to make, absolutely delicious, and of course, nutritious. So I am very much looking forward to you giving this one a try. And when you do, snap a picture and tag me on Instagram and Facebook so I can see all of the clean and deliciousness you're whipping up in your very own kitchen. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Dani Spies and I'll see you back here next time with some more clean and deliciousness. Cheers!