Mediterranean Quinoa Salad Recipe _ Healthy Mediterranean Salad!

Here is a salad that is loaded with texture, color, and flavor, plus you can prepare it ahead. We're gonna do a one-bowl situation, which I absolutely love. And we're gonna start by making the dressing. Grab a lemon and we're gonna zest and juice it right in our big bowl. And we have some quinoa cooking on the stove. So while that's happening, we're just gonna prepare the veggies and the dressing. So you're gonna zest the lemon until it's fully boiled. People forget that lemon zest is a lot of flavor, so why not use it? Zest and juice of one large lemon. Cup your hand, catch the seeds. It's a juicy one here, David. Thank you for coming. Nice big pinch of salt and nice big pinch of pepper. And about, I would say, what, a teaspoon or so dried oregano. Drizzle the olive oil while whisking. And here, you should really use some good olive oil, right? So of course, mine is from TheMediterraneanDish.com. All right, so just whisk as you drizzle about a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil, which is just enough to cover your quinoa. You wanna give your salad so much flavor. Oh, darn, I finished my oil. No, it's fine. I got a quarter cup right here, but man, this is good stuff. Slide your bowl right here because everything is going in this bowl. Fewer dishes, nobody's mad about that. We're gonna chop up a couple bell peppers, any color you like. I think orange and yellow, nice and sweet. You go around and slice down. Fancy, goodbye. We're gonna do the same with our yellow pepper, stand it up on its butt. Is this the butt or is this the butt? Oh, Max loves peppers. I'm sorry, Max. Here you go, pepper, go. Go around, slice. Thank you for coming. And then we're gonna chop them down. Point your knife down and chop like a pro. Looks good going right in here. When you're working with something small like quinoa, you kind of chop your salad ingredients nice and small because you don't want them to take over the quinoa. Here, it's over there. Quinoa takes only about 15 minutes to cook, so once you get some water boiling and you add your quinoa, I like to add a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt, and you just kind of let it simmer until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa is nice and tender. 15 minutes, really, which is good enough to chop up all the ingredients, and you can have this on the table super fast. Going in. Then one nice, large English cucumber. We all know that we like English cucumber around here because it's sweet, it's not bitter, and you don't have to peel the skin off because it's nice and thin. Again, going for smaller pieces. I might even chop them just a little bit more, too. And when you use English cucumbers, because they're seedless, they do not produce as much water in your salad, so your salad won't be a soggy mess. And then you take your knife and you kind of do a back-and-forth motion, kind of like a fan, with the knife pointing down on one side, and that way you can just chop up the cubes a little bit smaller even. This looks good. We're going right in here. Quinoa is almost ready for me, which is perfect. I have only these to chop now. We're gonna use both the white and the green parts. People forget about the white parts. They are the ones that have a lot of the flavor, so we're gonna, again, chop up really nice and small. I'm feeling very good about all the textures and the colors in this recipe. That's what makes a good salad. Focus on texture, color. That also ensures it's a nutritious salad because you're getting in a lot of good, different variety. My quinoa is ready. Ooh, yes. I'm gonna fluff it up a little bit, and I'm gonna let it cool just briefly, but not all the way. This is one cup of quinoa, and it makes a ton, so this is a great recipe for a crowd. Quinoa is one of the few plant-based foods that are considered a complete protein on its own, meaning it has all nine amino acids in it, which is very rare, especially if you're a vegetarian or you're on a plant-forward diet. Quinoa is very beneficial and very satisfying, so cooling it a little bit more here. So it's not fully cooled, but that's okay, but you don't wanna put it in when it's super hot either. And you can make the quinoa one night ahead too. I've kind of gotten in the habit of cooking my grains, which actually, quinoa is a seed, not a grain, but it's considered a grain. A lot of people think of it that way because it kind of is like a rice or a farro. So now, once everything is in your bowl, all you have to do is mix it up, and of course, you wanna give it a taste. If you wanna add some more salt or seasoning, then you go for it at this point. And if quinoa's taste is an issue for you, you may be one of those people who might consider quinoa bitter or it has a different taste to you, what you wanna make sure of is you want to rinse the quinoa very well before you cook it and that takes care of the coating on it, which has that taste. I personally don't mind that, but some people do, so that's a tip for you. Now, make sure that while the quinoa is somewhat warm, you're mixing it in here. That way, it's gonna absorb a lot of the flavor from the veggies and the beautiful dressing that we created. Final flavor maker ingredients that give it that bold Mediterranean flair is, of course, creamy feta. I like to mix some feta in, and then I like to add on top at the end as well, so. And then some olives. Any olives will probably work here. I think these are kalamatas. So at this point, you can let it sit for a few minutes. You can store it in the fridge and use it for lunch the next day. However you wanna use it, it'll work out. It's absolutely delicious. Lots of good flavor, lots of crunch from the veggies. The quinoa is well-balanced. Mm, I'm gonna dig in and let you know, because, you know, quality control. I have to taste it so I can tell you how we feel about it. Mm. Hold on, gotta finish chewing. I absolutely love this salad. It's so good. Mm. Even the puppy wants some, but he's not getting any. I'm a huge feta fan, and I love to, just before serving it, add more feta cheese on top. Oh, it's so good. Okay, now, now, now I'm in my happy place when there's more feta. We all know that. If you're looking for more salads that you can make ahead, try my balila salad next. Grab the recipe for this easy quinoa salad over on TheMediterraneanDish.com. I will see you later. Ciao. I've gotta try it one more time, just in case. You know how the ancient Egyptians, they found in their tombs, like, vessels of food, different foods? But, you know, if we were to do that again, I would probably like to take olive oil and feta with me in my pyramid. That would be my happy place, you know, for the afterlife. We're digressing here today, right?