Saturday, March 5, 2011

Mexican Quinoa Salad

I found this recipe for Mexican Quinoa Salad on The Girl Who Ate Everything site. It was guest blogged from My Green Diet. Does that make this a 3rd generation recipe? Please look at their picture as it is much better than mine.

I began making this recipe on Thursday evening. I cooked the quinoa and made the dressing. On Friday I completed the prep but completely forgot that I had made the dressing. As I was adding the lime juice I thought to myself that I had made a salad dressing the night before that had similar ingredients. It wasn't until all the ingredients were in the bowl that I realized that I had already made this dressing. So I went ahead and made another cup of quinoa so that I could double the recipe and use all the dressing. I posted about my error on facebook which prompted a lot of requests for the recipe. I commented that after we tasted it and determined if it was good would I share it. The results are in-we really liked it and our guests did too.

The only change I made was I didn't use red quinoa as I didn't have any. I do think it looks pretty in their picture and may have to get my hands on some. I used bottled lime juice and I counted the tomatoes as I hate when recipes give you a measurement for something that you'd rather count. Also, take note that the original recipe says it serves 2-4. I am guessing they mean as a main dish because as a side dish it serves more than that- probably 6-8.

(Also, if anyone knows why blogger keeps rotating my photos or can give me a solutions it would be greatly appreciated)


1 C. Quinoa, washed and drained
2 C. Water
1/4 C. Olive Oil
3 Tbls. Lime Juice
3/4 tsp. Cumin
Pinch Red Pepper Flakes, (optional)
1 Can Black Beans, rinsed and drained
12 Cherry Tomatoes, cut in quarters
5 Green Onions, finely chopped
1/4 C. Chopped Cilantro
1 Avocado, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the quinoa and add to a saucepan with the water, cover, bring to boil and reduce to simmer - cook until all water is absorbed. 10-15 min. Turn off the heat and leave it alone for 10-15 minutes. Remove lid, fluff with a fork and pour into a large bowl. Add black beans, tomatoes, onion, cilantro, and avocado.
Separately, whisk together extra virgin olive oil, lime juice, cumin and red pepper flakes. Add salt and pepper.
Toss dressing with quinoa mixture. Season with salt and pepper.
This salad can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks good. I love quinoa.

As far as your pictures, I can only tell you what my experience using WordPress taught me. With that software, I noticed that some of my pictures ended up being rotated when I pulled them up to post. I discovered that I had to use the rotate feature with the picture upload to re-rotate them back to the way that they were and then save them in that format before posting.

When you pull up a picture to upload, is there a thumbnail that appears that shows the picture rotated? Do you see a a menu bar that allows you to rotate the picture after selecting it to upload? Is there a button for saving uploaded pictures with changes made?

Gila said...

I'm gonna try this, it looks delish!

Arica said...

Gila-I hope you like it! Let me know!
Pragmatic-Blogger works different than wordpress but I like the idea of looking at the preview and counter rotating. I'll try that. Thanks for the advice.