Warm quinoa salad

This recipe makes a colourful, cholesterol free warm salad, perfect for a healthy winter lunch or dinner. It’s suitable for people who follow a vegan or cholesterol lowering diet, as well as those who are lactose and gluten intolerant.

• Ingredients
• Method
• Nutritional Content

 

Ingredients

Number of servings: 6 mains

• 2 cups quinoa
• 2 large beetroots or 10 small baby beets
• 1 large sweet potato
• 1 parsnip
• 1/2 butternut pumpkin
• 10 shallots
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 capsicums
• 100 g kale (or spinach)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 2 tablespoons chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste

 
Preparation time: 40 minute
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Difficulty rating: Easy
 

Method

• Preheat oven to 180°C.
• Dice sweet potato, pumpkin, beetroot, parsnip into small cubes.
• Slightly crush garlic cloves with side of knife, cut shallots in half lengthways. Place all of the above plus whole capsicums, in large roasting pan, with 1 tbs olive oil.
• Roast for 25 minutes or until soft.
• While roasting, cook quinoa in saucepan. Two parts water to one part quinoa. Stir on low heat until all water has been absorbed.
• Cook kale for 2 to 3 minutes in covered saucepan with a little water (if needed to prevent sticking).
• Take roast vegies out of the oven. Peel and chop capsicum then add it as well as the kale and quinoa to the roasting pan.
• Mix together with salt and pepper, then place in large serving bowl.
• Sprinkle with nuts and seeds.
• Serve while still warm.

Tips

• Substitute walnuts for your favourite variety of nut;
• Leftovers can be added to a tasty omelet or even a sandwich;
• Add extra kale or spinach for more vitamins and minerals;
• Leave the skin on vegetables for extra nutrients like fibre, which is used by the gastrointestinal system to digest food;
• Dry roast the vegetables to reduce the fat content of this recipe. Adding less fat to every recipe is an easy step you can take to improve your diet and reduce your risk of developing chronic health conditions like obesity, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome;
• Crumble low fat feta cheese over the salad for extra calcium to protect your teeth and bones. This is an especially good idea if you have increased calcium requirements have higher calcium requirements for example because you are:
  • Breastfeeding woman;
  • Adolescent girls or mature women.

Nutritional content

Nutritional analysis per serve:

Energy	2080.65 kJ 497.29 cal
Protein	16.34 g
Total fat	17.36 g
Saturated fat	1.72 g
Carbohydrates	63.17 g
Total sugars	14.30 g
Fibre	11.44 g
Sodium	58.38 mg
Cholesterol	0 mg
Potassium	1322.35 mg

 

More information

For more information on nutrition, including information on types and composition of food, nutrition and people, conditions related to nutrition, and diets and recipes, as well as some useful videos and tools, see Nutrition.

For more information on gluten-free diets, see Gluten-Free Diet.

For more information on vegetarian diets, see Vegetarian Diets.