Recipe: Asian Quinoa Salad

Light, healthy, and super easy to make, this Asian Quinoa Salad makes a delicious lunch or side dish.

Last week, I ran a kids’ workshop where we focused on Chinese New Year. We did two crafts (more details on those coming soon), and we made this Asian Quinoa Salad.

Any time I can get the kids shredding and chopping vegetables, they are happy campers, and feeding them a healthy, clean salad is most definitely a bonus at the end of the class.

This recipes makes a HUGE bowl, so safe to say it serves six as a salad, or me if I feast on it for the week. You can add grilled chicken or shrimp to it and really make it a more hearty meal, or keep it as is for a light salad, snack, or side item. It takes less than 25 minutes to make, which means it’s an easy weeknight choice, or make it on Sunday and keep the dressing on the side and you’ll have lunch for the week.

I love how colorful it is, and how guilt-free it is. It’s kind of like Spring on a plate, despite the gloomy grey skies we’ve been seeing out of our window lately, and it’s got a great crunch to it.

*That gorgeous plate comes from Suite One Studios, and the beautiful wood background comes courtesy of my Saturday morning dumpster diving adventures as seen on Snapchat (I’m cateomalley on snap).

Asian Quinoa Salad
Recipe courtesy of Cate O’Malley

Ingredients
One cup cooked quinoa (I used a quinoa/brown rice mix, but plain quinoa is a-ok)
Two carrots, shredded
Half of a cabbage, shredded
One bag of coleslaw mix (12 oz)
Three scallions chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Dressing ingredients:
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely grated
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 tablespoon honey
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Combine all the dressing ingredients, mix, and set aside. In a large bowl, put the quinoa, carrots, cabbage, coleslaw mix, scallions, and cilantro and toss until well combined. Add the dressing and mix until the salad is well coated. Serve.