Meatless Monday: Quinoa Salad

Last month we were talking about the benefits of batch cooking, and how easy it is to roast a chicken and have it for meals all week long: Super Simple Beans & Rice. We now have another recipe to add to your batch cooking collection: Quinoa Salad. 

Last week the Wisconsin Test Kitchen posted the Italian Chicken & Quinoa Vegetable Soup, and had a few cups of quinoa left over. We decided to try making a salad for easy lunches during the week. The yield on this salad was insane! In addition to having it with burgers for dinner one night, we also ended up having it for lunch for the rest of the week. It's a good thing we like quinoa... We had also roasted a chicken earlier in the week, and added diced chicken to the salad for extra protein.

Not that it needs it; quinoa is packed with protein already: it has 8 grams of protein per cup, and it's considered the perfect food: it contains all nine of the essential amino acids, which cannot be made by the body and therefore must come from food. If you're considering going vegetarian; quinoa is one of the best ways to get protein in your diet.

Additionally, quinoa is pretty cheap to buy in bulk. You can get a 2lb bag for $19.85 on Amazon; which yields 32 servings, and at 62 cents per serving; that's pretty good. You can get even better deals at any of the big box retailers. 

 Bam! Put that in your bowl and eat it! 

Quinoa Salad

Recipe courtesy of: One Hundred Dollars a Month

Ingredients

2 cups quinoa
4 cups chicken stock
4 oz Feta cheese crumbles
15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
15 oz can sweet corn, rinsed and drained
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
1/2 red onion, diced

Dressing
1/2 cup lime juice {2 Limes}
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Place the quinoa and chicken stock in a rice cooker, turn it on and cook. Or, if you don't have a rice cooker, just cook it according to package directions. 

While the rice is cooking mix the dressing ingredients together and set aside.
In a large bowl combined the black beans, corn, spinach and red onion.

When the quinoa is finished cooking and has cooled down, combine it with the black bean mixture, add dressing and toss.

Serve in a nice big fat bowl and dig in!

Sadly, we're out of quinoa, and grocery shopping is still a week away. But, I can guarantee the ingredients for this tasty salad will be on the list again!

Stay Cool,
The Cool Dads Crew