Quinoa salad with cherries and pistachios is the best quinoa salad recipe I have ever made! It is a new entry, and you all will love it!

Except for the fact that it is OH.MY.GOODNESS, it is also an easy quinoa salad recipe you can prepare even in the tiniest kitchen in the world. I’m no wrong, and I know it.

This cold summer salad requires no cooking: no pan, no oven, no heat. Ok, let’s not forget the fact that you need to have cooked quinoa. But if you already have some left in the fridge, please use it and create this miracle!

Well, as salads allow you to combine different textures and tastes in a single bowl, they remain the best choice for a quick and healthy meal. That’s why I love my summerish raw vegan green salad, my pear and gorgonzola salad (so chic!), another hydrating mixed green salad, and so many others I will post later on the blog.

This quinoa salad with cherries and pistachios is a five-star quinoa salad recipe and lets you have so much trial and error when it comes to the presentation because all of them WILL still look vibrant and colorful.

Anyways I have prepared three different presentations for you. Stay tuned; there is more!

Quinoa Salad With Cherries and Pistachios To Lick Your Fingers

Or, in other words, ingredients:

• Quinoa. Any type of quinoa is welcome. I had white quinoa and that is what I used. But other types of quinoa will not make a difference in taste.

By the way, did you know quinoa is super healthy? I knew it was rich in fiber and gluten-free, but I did not realize so many things! Make sure you include it more in your diet.

• Cherries. I always try to include seasonal fruit and veggies in everything I cook, and cherry is one main ingredient (because it is in season) in this easy quinoa salad recipe. It adds a natural juice to the salad and it incorporates a lovely sweetness.

Did you know it was NOT true that George Washington did cut a cherry tree? LOL, that’s funny! I always thought it was a real story.

• I used parsley and chives for adding a green sprinkle on the dish. Chop them very finely.
• This quinoa salad dressing recipe is honestly a basic olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a splash of honey, which allows you to enjoy a back to basics meal and a fully packed one. Don’t think too much of ‘what it could have been’ because the easier to make it, the fresher it will taste.
• Last but not least, the king of nuts: pistachio. Pistachios go very well with sweets, therefore paring it with cherries becomes a perfect combo.

Compose the plate like a pro!

Use a ring mold. In the first layer, mix quinoa and chives. In the second layer, put the halved cherries in a circular shape. Add chopped pistachios in the middle and around the plate.

Cooked Or Uncooked Quinoa?

The answer to every quinoa salad is BOTH!

This quinoa salad with cherries and pistachios is made with cooked quinoa. Frankly, I never used uncooked quinoa in any of my recipes because I am skeptical about how unhulled the seeds are.

I will quote this beneficial information I found earlier.

Steve Meyerowitz, a cookbook author and raw food advocate who has been featured on PBS and the Food Network, and in “Prevention” magazine, advises against consuming quinoa as a raw sprout. Meyerowitz says that quinoa sprouts are prone to rot and that the health dangers posed by eating molded sprouts outweighs the benefits of eating quinoa raw. Before adding uncooked quinoa to your diet, speak to your doctor or an experienced nutritionist about the possible advantages and drawbacks.

Michelle Kerns from healthyeating.sfgate.com

It is equally nutritious in sprout form, but cooking quinoa only takes 10-15 minutes, and it is safer this way. It is also easier and quicker to begin exploring different recipes with it.

Should Quinoa Salad Be Hot Or Cold?

As a cook, I say cold.

If you choose to make a salad with quinoa, you should make it cold.

If you want it warm, make sure the other ingredients are warm too. You can not make a cold salad when one of the ingredients is warm.

As it is neutral in taste, there are many versatile ways to include it in your diet, even as a soup. Check out my gluten-free soup packed in vegetables, grains, and seeds (including quinoa).

While cold quinoa is a comforting summer meal, it can turn into a perfect takeaway lunch too. I mean, it is a proper hostess! All the ingredients enhance their flavor when soaked in quinoa.

My quinoa salad with cherries and pistachios is packed with proteins, vitamins and it is so refreshing and good-looking . Also, look how gourmet it can also be!

Easy Tips For A Perfect Quinoa Salad

1. For a quinoa salad use cold quinoa.
2. You already know the dressing is to be added right before serving. But keep this rule in mind twice for quinoa salads.
3. Not as much dressing as in other salads. The other ingredients in a quinoa salad have their own liquid and each of them have a strong flavor. Make sure to not over-mix.
4. Cook less than the timing set in the package. Cooking it (for example) for 8 minutes instead of 15 minutes, and than drying it well, will make sure quinoa will still be crunchy and last longer in the fridge.
5. Be creative. You can serve it in a simple bowl, compose a ring mold like I have done in the flat black plate or dare to use a fine glass of wine (last picture).

Last but not least. Please let me know if this post inspired you to get up, open your fridge and start cooking.

Quinoa Salad With Cherries And Pistachios

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★ 5 Stars ☆ ★ 4 Stars ☆ ★ 3 Stars ☆ ★ 2 Stars ☆ ★ 1 Star ☆

No reviews

• Author: Nejona
• Total Time: 18 minutes
• Yield: 4

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Ingredients

Units USM

• 1 cup quinoa (white quinoa)
• 1 cup cherries
• 1/3 cup chives (finely chopped)
• 1/3 cup parsley (finely chopped)
• 1/2 cup pistachios

For the dressing

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp creamy balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 tbsp honey

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

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Instructions

1. Wash all the ingredients in running water.
   
2. Boil the quinoa for 8 minutes.
3. Drain the quinoa and spread it on a parchment paper.
4. Finely chop the chives and parsley.
   
5. Remove the seeds from the cherries and then cut them in half.
6. Remove pistachios husks. ⅓ crunch it, ⅓ finely chop it and ⅓ leave it unhusked but whole.
7. Make sure your quinoa is very well dried and then mix it with parsley and chives.
8. Add cherries and pistachios at the end.

For the dressing

1. Simply mix the ingredients in a jar and shake well until they dissolve.
   
2. Add the dressing right before starting to eat.
   

• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 8 minutes
• Category: Appetizer, Salad, Side Dish
• Cuisine: Mediterranean

Keywords: gluten free salad, quinoa salad, vegan salad

The post Summer Quinoa Salad With Cherries And Pistachios appeared first on Mealraculous.

This summer green salad is a very cheap recipe because it is a leftover salad! That’s right. There are 2-3 leaves per green in this bowl, some lemon zest, and a few cherry tomatoes.

Super tasty salads sometimes come out of a flash idea, a hungry stomach, and almost nothing left in the fridge. I think all summer green salads may become very cheap vegan recipes with just a little love.

Please do not call it boring, though. This very cheap vegan recipe will add so much color to your table. It is light to eat, so vibrant, full of nutrients, hydrating, refreshing.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a new green salad in a cheap vegan recipes collection you will want to hang on your fridge.

Salads are never dull. I’ve told you how salads get you out of hunger even if you only have two ingredients in your fridge. And I know I’m no wrong.

The dressing for this cheap vegan recipe of green salad in the summer is a simple vinaigrette made with love and with my eyes closed. I swear you will want to eat it again the next day!

OK, I am writing a separate post only for this green salad in a cheap vegan recipe menu because it goes insanely perfect with toasts! And by the way, let’s admit toasts are the ideal solution for the summer heatwave.

I was sure it was not customary to lose appetite in summer until I read this. 

 I’m not alone. And I am sure that if I say that in summer I wish I’d not cook at all, most of you will join me.

Well, toasts are such a good solution for this. Quickly, with whatever you have on hand, you can create exquisite toasts within a brief time.

Toasts and salad are such a lovely combo and so inviting, but they make you feel full.

Let’s See What’s Inside This Very Cheap Vegan Recipe

Or, better see what you have left on your fridge. All I had was:

• Red leaf lettuce. All you need for a bowl (like mine, which is equals 2 portions) is 2-3 leaves of this kind of lettuce.
• Romaine lettuce, which is high in fiber and low in calories.
• A handful of celery leaves, all that you have left.
• Arugula, use the smalles portion in this case because it is bitter.
• Mint and basil.
• Chives. I did not have any garlic/shallot.
• Zest, as much lemon as you like. I like to use patato peeler for this.
• Cherry tomatoes, because tomato is the other word for summer! Cut them in half and put them inside of the salad.

Salad Tips That May Help You Prepare A Cheap Vegan Recipe

Well, my research tells me no green is unhealthy. But this helped me be selective when I bought my greens.

Too complicated? No worries! However, trust your gut and consider these tips:

1. Buy the shinest organic lettuce you can find. You’re just lucky if you grow lettuce yourself on your backyard.
2. In a salad use different types of lettuce, but choose the ones that have a similar type of leaf. For example, watercress and big radicchio absorb the dressing differently.
3. As you have lettuce, throw in almost as much whole leaves of various herbs.  I used basil and mint in my salad, but you can also add terragon, parsley, dill, chervil etc. Herbs help enhance the flavor in a salad.
4. Wash your leaves well in plenty of cold water  + a tablespoon of cider vinegar.
5. Make sure you put them into an absorbent material, such as soft cloth or whatever you have on hand and keep it in the fridge. Another idea would be putting the dry leaves into the salad spinner and transfering it into the fridge. When the leaves are cold, they become crisp.
6. Make it colorful. Add vibrant radishes and in spring/summer add halved cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.
7. Deepen the greens by adding green beans, asparagus, fresh peas etc.
8. Make the dressing with pounded garlic in a mortar with coarse sea salt, than adding your favorite vinegar (use more than one, if you can sense all the ingredients) or citrus: orange, citron, lemon juice. Than, whisk in very good olive oil until it thickens.  1 part of acid to 2-3 parts olive oil should do the trick.
9. Go with dicing a shallot if garlic is too hard for your taste.
10. Add some Dijon mustard and/or white miso if you like the vinaigrette to have more body.
11. Add the dressing partially and toss with your hands, as this way you can sense how much dressing is coating the leaves. Add more dressing if necessary.
12. Taste, taste, taste.
13. Add ground black pepper and serve!

Clean leaves dressed in just a sprinkle of sea salt, lemon juice, and a splash of olive oil make the salad just as heavenly as the method above.

Does This Salad Go Well With Apples?

Absolutely! You can still make an antioxidant-packed salad with a couple of apple slices in there. Fruits are welcome in salads, and apples are versatile. In my opinion, they go with every salad.

Summer green salads will look even more radiant with apples in them, and it would still be a cheap vegan recipe you can prepare with whatever you have on hand.

How To Spice It Up?

The truth is that any citrus zest will do amazing things to your food. The chances are that a little fragrant citrus zest will rescue any of a cheap vegan recipe from being stashed away in the fridge, never to be eaten again.

I spiced this salad up, peeling lemon skin.  Lemon zest is flavorful,  brightly colored, shiny, and it brings such a tangy flavor to the recipe.

It’s not that there is all lemon skin inside. I just peeled it like a potato while only taking just a thin layer of the inner skin.

My goal was not to cut it deeply, though. I just wanted to get the shallowest slice possible. And it worked for me, as it was not bitter. I could get it with my fork and feel all the essential oils of the lemon.

Also, another way to spice this salad is to pair it with something—ideally, toasts. The ingredients you see with this picture are the ingredients for a toast I’ll show you soon.

Other Related Salads

A bowl of salad does wonders in summer. Consider my mixed green salad or my pear and gorgonzola salad with celery. I’m sure you are going to love them!

A Note For This Salad

This salad is dairy-free, but feel free to add some of your favorite cheese if you will.

This summer green salad makes a very cheap vegan recipe. All the ingredients you will eat are raw, and they could be fresh from the farmers’ market as well.

This cheap vegan recipe is dressing versatile. It does accept every dressing a salad could go.

Toasts go AMAZINGLY with this salad. They make a perfect meal together, all packed, and you will see a couple of ideas in my other posts. Keep your eyes peeled.

Would you mind sharing your comments on this recipe? Let me know if other members of your crew liked it or if you already made some changes.

I’d love to hear more from you.

This Summer Green Salad Is A Very Cheap Vegan Recipe

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★★★★★

5 from 2 reviews

• Total Time: 5 minutes
• Yield: 2 people

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Ingredients

Units USM

• 2 cups red leaf lettuce
• 1 cups romaine lettuce
• 1/2 cups celery leaves
• 1/3 cups arugula
• 1/3 cups mint
• 1/3 cups basil
• 1/8 cups chives
• 1/8 cups lemon peel
• 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes (halved)

For The Simple Vinaigrette

• 4 tbsp oilve oil (extra virgin)
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• a pinch of sea salt
• a pinch of pepper

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Instructions

1. Put all the vinaigrette ingredients in a jar.
2. Close the jar and shake it until all the ingredients incorporate.
3. Toss the salad ingredients together with dressing.
4. Serve immediately.

• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Category: Salad, Side Dish
• Cuisine: Mediterranean

The post This Summer Green Salad Is A Very Cheap Vegan Recipe appeared first on Mealraculous.