This warm salad makes a delicious light lunch, or goes well as part of a bigger spread. As it is, the recipe is vegan, but would also work well with some tangy feta cheese crumbled on top.
Ingredients:
For the salad
- 100g white quinoa
- 100g red quinoa
- 1 courgette
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 1 small bunch fine beans
- 4 spring onions
- 1 handful of toasted pumpkin seeds
For the dressing
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp runny honey
- 2 tsp wholegrain mustard
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Start by dicing the courgette into chunks, and cutting the spring onion into 2cm lengths. Put these into a roomy roasting dish with a drizzle of olive oil and roast in the oven at 180OC for approximately 20 minutes until soft.
- Add the quinoa to a saucepan with approximately 500ml water and bring to the boil. Once boiling turn down to a simmer and cook with the lid on for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes turn off the heat, drain the quinoa, then tip it back into to the saucepan and put the lid back on (still off the heat). This will allow the quinoa to continue cooking in the steam without going soggy.
- Meanwhile cut the fine beans and asparagus into 2 cm lengths and blanch in boiling water for a few minutes until they are just soft – you want them to retain some bite so once they are ready run under cold water to stop them cooking further.
- To make the dressing thoroughly mix all the ingredients together – an easy way to do this is to add them to an empty jar and shake well to combine.
- Remove the courgettes and onion from the oven, add the asparagus, beans and quinoa to the hot dish and mix gently to combine.
- Give the dressing a final shake or stir to ensure it is well mixed, then pour over the salad and gently stir it through.
- Sprinkle the toasted pumpkin seeds on top.
Swaps: You could substitute the vegetables with any similar greens – this works really well with peas and mangetout and you could add roasted broccoli in place of the courgette if you prefer.