Quinoa & Chickpeas Salad | Quinoa Salad With Feta Cheese
Quinoa and chickpeas salad, a colorful salad with hearty quinoa, tossed with chickpeas, cucumbers and carrots. Topped with feta cheese and mixed herbs, this is one hearty meal in a bowl.
Quinoa recipes | Quinoa Salad | Salad with Quinoa | Quick and easy salad recipes | Easy salad recipe | Salad with grain and cheese | Feta cheese salad | Chickpeas Salad | Hearty Vegetable Salad
Salads : Love or Hate
Salads are welcome at home. Me and my husband love it. When we have a get together, my friends too, look forward to the salads i make, especially this tricolor vegetable salad and mango & sprouts salad, both are colorful, hearty and flavorsome.
If you love a fruits or looking for a recipe to use the fruits you got for festivities, check this colorful fruit salad with lemon mint honey dressing. Super delicious and your salad bowl will be empty in minutes. This hearty mixed bean salad with coconut is another refreshing way to enjoy lentils.
If you are looking for a Mexican style salad, check this rice and mixed bean salad with simple dressing. Indian household will have a pack of soaked chickpeas or black eyed peas in the freezer, so it is easy to make these quick and filling chickpea salad, blackeyed peas salad , black chana salad.
Most of the salads mentioned above qualify to be a meal as such, when paired with a bowl of warm soup or a hearty cheese toast.
Why Quinoa?
At home, i use quinoa regularly for my meals. For someone like me with Insulin resistance, I need to be watchful about my carb sources. After consulting a nutritionist, we decided to use more of quinoa in my meals.
Apart from being the most popular health food, it is gluten-free, high in protein and one of the few plant foods that contain all the essential amino acids.
I m a happy girl with quinoa. When my house members enjoy rice, I happily swapped my plate with quinoa. It keeps me satiated and at the same time I don't have to worry much about spiking my insulin levels.
What else Can you make with Quinoa?
Apart from enjoying quinoa with my south-indian meals like sambar and rasam. I do make these quinoa aloo tikki or mixed vegetable cutlets, an excellent appetizer. We love this masaledar quinoa, just like mixed vegetable rice, a colorful main dish.
If you wonder what else with quinoa, here is an array of dishes to make and enjoy with this super food.
- Quinoa Idi and Quinoa Dosai : popular South-Indian Breakfast dishes.
- Quinoa Adai : Protein rich crepe
- Quinoa Sarkarai pongal : A south-indian dessert
- Quinoa South-Indian Lunch Platter
- Quinoa Dhokla : Gujarati Snack.
Ingredients to make Quinoa Salad
- Quinoa : I have used tri-color quinoa in the recipe, you can use any quinoa variety you have.
- Vegetables : i have use cucumber, carrots, onion and tomatoes in the recipe.
- Legumes : i have used chickpeas in this colorful quinoa salad. You can swap it for any other beans or lentils you have at hand. My personal choice would be black eyed peas or black beans.
- Salad dressing : I prefer to keep my salad dressings simple. i have used lemon juice along with pounded fresh pepper and salt in the hearty quinoa chickpeas salad.
- Cheese : I have used nibbles of feta cheese in this hearty chickpeas salad. You can add cubes of fresh cottage cheese too.
- Herbs : This delish salad with chickpeas and quinoa is made more flavorsome by adding a handful of fresh coriander and mint leaves. If you dont have fresh mint leaves, you can also use dry mint.
Quinoa & Chickpeas Salad | Quinoa Salad With Feta Cheese
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup raw quinoa i used tricolor quinoa
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas ( i used canned ones)
- 2 Lebanese cucumber peeled and chopped fine
- 1 large onion chopped fine
- 1 large tomato chopped fine
- handful of coriander leaves chopped fine
- handful of mint leaves finely chopped
- juice of 2 lemons
- ½ teaspoon freshly pounded pepper
- 3 tablespoon crumbled feta cheese
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Rinse and wash the quinoa once or twice. Since they are very small, i use my tea strainer while straining the water.
Cook Quinoa
- Cook the quinoa in an open pot by adding ¾ cup water to it. They will leave a white tail once they are cooked.
- The amount of water added is perfect for cooking them well. Incase there is much water left in the cooked quinoa, drain it completely.
How to cook Quinoa in Microwave
- Wash and rinse quinoa in water. I cooked the quinoa in Microwave, it can also be cooked on stove-top. Take the rinsed quinoa in a microwave safe bowl, add 1 cup of water, Microwave @ high for 10 minutes, stir it once in between.
- Take it out, there won't be any excess water, if there is any, drain and set aside until use.
Let's Assemble the Salad
- Add the cooked and drained quinoa to a large bowl. Make sure the bowl can fit the other salad ingredients well.
- I used canned chickpeas, drain the chickpeas well, rinse it with running water . Add the drained chickpeas to the quinoa bowl.
- Add the rest of the veggies, chopped cucumber, onions, tomatoes, chopped mint and coriander leaves. Toss well to combine.
- Squeeze juice out of 2 lemons, drizzle it over the tossed salad. Add pepper powder and salt. Toss to combine.
- Let the salad sit for 20 minutes, for the flavors to combine.
- Just before serving, add feta cheese to the salad, Toss gently and serve.
Nutrition
Disclaimer
I m not a Doctor or a Nutritionist The Nutrition information provided above comes from the plugin and is only an estimate.
This is a filling and flavorful salad. I like chickpeas in salads.
One more filling and delicious salad with quinoa. I love the addition of feta in there..
Very colorful and filling salad!
what a delicious bowl there 🙂 try colour quinoa - now I would like to source that 🙂 is it available at DXB duty free, Priya ?
very healthy and crunchy salad. good one
Healthy n colorful bowl of salad
I somehow prefer quinoa in wet and mushy dishes but it just maybe me. This salad is healthy and filling.
Fantastic salad and i love this kind of nutritious salad, which is quite easy to dish and enjoy without any fuss.
Loveit. A fantastic salad and yum looking bowl.
That is a unique combination. Loved the salads!
Such a refreshing and delicious salad with quinoa and herbs.
Very refreshing salad! Love the flavors in it.
so colourful and refreshing!!
Quinoa chickpea salad looks refreshing.
The presentation is stunning priya, so simple yet to elegant!..
Wonder how I missed this salad,gave it a try today and everyone simply loved it .i did not have feta and used cottage cheese which tasted amazing . Thanks Priya for a wonderful and healthy recipe .
Cannot take my eyes off such a nutritious salad. We are enjoying every bite of the freshness and that quinoa as little pops.
Priya, like this protein loaded salad. So healthy and filling as you've added quinoa. Bookmarked for the summer season as that is when we enjoy salads most.
Quinoa is such a versatile seed and the Salads are an easy way to use it. Love a good quinoa salad. Will try your version
Lucky for me, my two like salads but are not to partial towards quinoa. They have seen this salad and are urging me to make some for their lunch. Thank you for onboarding them on the quinoa bandwagon.
Summer is almost upon us, and this quinoa salad will be made shortly at home. Thanks for a great recipe, Priya.