Quinoa Salad

I invented this dish in my head and it couldn't have turned out more perfect!

July 3rd is Johnny's brother, Mark's, birthday. Since they live on the northside, we usually have people over here for his party to cut down on everybody's travel time. This year is a BBQ and everybody's bringing a dish to share.

Mark doesn't eat any dairy and isn't big on anything unhealthy. He loves quinoa and vegetables, so I decided to make a quinoa salad with a bunch of roasted vegetables.

To start, I put 2 cups of quinoa in a pot with 4 cups of water and 1 vegetarian vegetable bouillion. Just enough to give the otherwise bland quinoa a little bit of flavor, but not become overpowering. This made SO much. I got scared at this point! I spread it in a big bowl to cool some, and got started on the veggies.


I cut up:

1/2 onion
1 green pepper
1 small zucchini
1 small yellow squash
2 stalks of celery
1 large carrot
~1 cup broccoli
~1 cup cauliflower
~1 cup asparagus spears

And tossed in a bowl with about 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 Tbsp kosher salt, 1/2 tsp pepper. I spread this out on a baking pan and they went into a 425° oven for just over 20 minutes.


Once the vegetables were done, I slid them from the baking pan overtop of the now-cooled quinoa in the big bowl. This looked like even more, and I was even more scared!

Using a rubber spatula, I gently folded the quinoa over the veggies and incorporated everything together without clumping the quinoa or breaking the vegetables up.

I forgot to get a picture before I put it in the serving bowl with plastic wrap over! Oops! I also might have snuck a small bowl to "test" and had to re-fill in the hole so it didn't look like anybody had any yet.

I'm so happy about this, it came out better than I expected. It's vegan, dairy free, and gluten free. A great dish for a group event, especially when you have more than one allergy sufferer! And, it also makes a TON. This filled a huge serving dish - I'd say maybe 10 cups? If you aren't feeding an army, I'd half it!