Light and healthy, this delicious Simple Veggie Quinoa Salad is so easy to make!  It is great for lunch, dinner, or especially as the filling inside veggie wraps.   This recipe boasts fresh ingredients in a delightfully light salad dressing making it an ultimate Whole Food Plant Based salad, no oil, no sugar, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.

Ameera here!

I absolutely LOVE this Simple Veggie Quinoa Salad.  It is my all-time favorite salad.  It has this beautiful freshness about it, and it tastes amazing!  The ingredients are SUPER simple and there is nothing complicated about it.  It comes together very quickly once you have the quinoa made.

Versatility

One of the things that I love about this salad is its versatility.  It can be featured as a main dish for lunch, a beautiful side compliment for dinner, and it also makes an awesome filler for a veggie wrap.  We didn’t think about making it into a veggie wrap until the day after we made it and photographed it.

We had been waiting on Siete gluten-free almond flour tortillas to arrive via FedEx.  They showed up on our door step the day after we made this salad.  We were super excited to get the Siete tortillas and I thought “Hmmmm, I bet this salad would be amazing in this as a wrap!”

So I put some inside a Siete almond flour tortilla . . . and, I am so happy to say that it was AH-MAZING as the filler inside a wrap.  You simply must try it.  You won’t be sorry!

Let it marinade

The more this salad sits, the better it gets. I would recommend refrigerating it for a least an for a more in-depth flavor. The next day, oooo baby, the flavor is awesome! I just love it!

Kwhy-nigh

“Quinoa” is the word that my dad simply cannot pronounce.  He loves it, but he literally cannot pronounce it.  He calls it “Kwhy-nigh”.   Think “why” with a hard “K” in front of it,  and then the “nigh” part – think “high”, then replace the “h” with an “n”. “Kwhy-nigh.”  No matter how hard he tries, he simply cannot remember how to pronounce it.

Our conversations go a little like this: This is my dad talking to me:

Dad: “Got any of that kwhy-nigh salad left?”

Me: “No Dad, you ate all the kwhy-nigh salad yesterday.”

Sometimes, we all just give up correcting him, and we all call it kwhy-nigh salad in our house.  😛  LOL

Hi!  Robin here.

I love kwhy-nigh salad.  It is so gosh-darn yummy!  I love how fresh it tastes.  The dressing is light and perfectly accents all the beautiful veggie flavors.  As you know, our dressing does not contain any oil which can weigh down salads and make it feel heavily.  I am happy to say that you won’t miss the oil at all in this salad, no heaviness here!

Quinoa, say what?

Believe it or not, I had not tried quinoa until about 3 or 4 years ago.  I had no clue even what it was.  The first time I tried it, I was unimpressed.  It was cooked, plain quinoa with a hint of salt.  It just seemed so bland to me.  It wasn’t until a few years later when I had it ramped up with veggies and in salads that I feel in love with it.  It is so good!  I absolutely love it now.

 This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.

Wrap it up!

Monkey has made this beautiful salad many times.  It is a family favorite, but when she decided to put it in a wrap, well . . . let’s just say, it took this veggie quinoa salad to a whole “nuther” level of flavor town.

We tucked in some avocado slices, extra tomatoes and we were in quinoa veggie wrap heaven!  Absolutely perfect for lunch boxes, road trips, picnics, you name it, this beautiful wrap is killer delicious.

The only thing I regret is that we didn’t have this revelation until the day after we photographed it and we have no photo to show off its awesomeness!

Give this simple recipe a try, you won’t be sorry you did.  Sooooo darned delicious!

Products Used:

• Whisk (for whisking the salad dressing)
• Fine mesh strainer (for rinsing the quinoa)
• Medium sized stock pot (to cook the quinoa).

Simple Veggie Quinoa Salad

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• Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Yield: 7 Cups 1x
• Category: Salad

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Description

Light and healthy, this delicious Simple Veggie Quinoa Salad is so easy to make!  It is great for lunch, dinner, or especially as the filling inside veggie wraps.   This recipe boasts fresh ingredients in a delightfully light salad dressing making it an ultimate Whole Food Plant Based salad, no oil, no sugar, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

Veggie Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa (see notes below in Step 1 on cooking the quinoa*)
• 1 – 15.5 oz. can chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
• 2 celery stalks (diced)
• 2 carrots (grated)
• ½ bell pepper (diced – We used a ½ of a yellow bell pepper. Use bell pepper color of choice)
• 15 small cherry tomatoes (halved – Grape or small heirloom tomatoes work equally well.  We used a combination of cherry tomatoes and small heirloom tomatoes)
• ½ red onion (finely diced)
• 1 ½ cup fresh baby spinach (packed, then rough chop or torn)
• ½ cup golden raisins (or regular raisins)
• ¼ cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

Salad Dressing:

• 3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice (see recipes notes below*)
• 2 teaspoons 100% pure maple syrup
• 3 Tablespoons water
• ½ teaspoon sea salt (+/- to taste)
• 2 – 3 twists cracked pepper

Optional:

• Wraps (of choice to make veggie quinoa wraps)
• Hemp seeds (to top individual servings with hemp seeds)
• Avocado slices (to top individual servings or tucked inside wraps)

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Instructions

1. Rinse the dried quinoa well. There is a natural bitterness to quinoa.  This is because the outer coating of quinoa is bitter by nature.  In order to remove the bitterness, you have to rinse dry quinoa really well by vigorously rinsing it through a fine mesh strainer.   Rinse and cook the quinoa by boiling 1 cup of dry (rinsed) quinoa in 2 cups of water with a dash of sea salt for 20 minutes.  Allow to cool, fluff, refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Make the salad dressing by combining all the salad dressing ingredients in a small bowl, then whisking vigorously. Taste test (see recipe notes) and set aside.
3. Make the salad by adding all the veggie ingredients into a large bowl, add the cooked quinoa, and salad dressing; then toss well. Refrigerate to allow the flavors to marry.
4. To serve, make individual veggie quinoa salads and top with hemp seeds. OR, this salad is especially tasty inside a veggie wrap. 

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Notes

*Sea Salt:  You may need to add some sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences.

*Lemon juice:  If you prefer a lemony flavor, use 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice or less red wine vinegar.  Start with 1 Tablespoon lemon juice and then add more after taste testing.

*Nutritional Information: Does not include toppings

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Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1 Cup
• Calories: 266.7
• Sugar: 16.1 g
• Sodium: 270.2 mg
• Fat: 5.5 g
• Carbohydrates: 45.3 g
• Fiber: 8.1 g
• Protein: 10.3 g

Storage:  Refrigerate.  Use within 7 days.

 This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.