This healthy, delicious and easy salad is a must try! It’s really easy to make, has a nice mix of savory and sweet and is filled with antioxidants. This salad is great on it own or as a side dish along with some fish or chicken.
Sometimes you need some extra antioxidants in your life. When I feel that I need an extra boost I try to add fruit and berries to my food. Not only do you get that extra dose of antioxidants, bu they also make such a great addition in a salads giving it some sweetness. I actually didn’t like adding fruit to my food until about a year ago. It’s just because I associated it with some really bad dishes I knew from growing up… like pineapple on a pizza, or banana and chicken in some kind of creamy sauce (no we didn’t eat that at home, but it was just the only dishes containing fruit that I knew of) and they just sounded so untempting… So I just didn’t think of adding it to my meals. But then I started adding some fresh summer fruits to my salads, and ever since I’ve been experimenting a lot with it. Adding fruit to a salad can gave a regular, quite boring salad a real face lift. It add interesting flavors and adds some more complexity to the dish.
In this salad I used quinoa as a base. I love adding some vegetable stock powder when I cook it just to add some more flavor to it. Otherwise it can feel a bit bland sometimes. Since I wanted to make this salad really nutritious and filled with antioxidant I made sautéed red cabbage, that is warm but still has some crunch. Roasted beetroots that are warm and tender and filled with manganese, potassium, iron, and vitamin C. You then have dry figs that adds sweetness and some chewiness to it. The berries adds lot of freshness to this salad and then we have the scallion adding some crunch and a mild onion like flavor. This salad is perfect to serve on it own, add some feta or goat cheese to it or serve it with some fish or chicken. This salad is also very easy to vary. You can replace the figs with dates, cranberries, dry apricots or raising. If you don’t have black or blueberries you can use any berries you have handy.
Ingredients for this Antioxidant Quinoa Salad:
- Quinoa
- Water
- Vegetable stock powder
- Salt
- Beetroot
- Red cabbage
- Dry figs
- Scallion
- Blackberries
- Blueberries
- Scallion
- Lemon
Other recipes you might like:
- Summery Beetroot & Grapefruit Salad
- Beetroot Salad with Blueberries
- Zucchini & Polka Beet Summer Salad
- Cauliflower Tabbouleh (Oil & Gluten Free)
- Beetroot Carpaccio Using Cooked Beets
- Persimmon Carpaccio
Antioxidant Quinoa Salad (Vegan & Gluten Free)
Ingredients
- 2 dl Quinoa
- 4 dl Water
- 1/2 tbsp Vegetable stock powder (optional)
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 large Beetroot cleaned and diced
- 1 1/2 dl Red cabbage thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp Water
- 2 Dried figs thinly sliced
- 1 dl Blackberries
- 1 dl Blueberries
- 1 Scallion sliced
- 1/2 Lemon juiced
- Olive oil, for baking
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
- Add rinsed and washed quinoa to a pot together with the water. Bring to a boil.
- Lower the heat, add stock powder (if using) and salt and let it shimmer for approximately 15-20 minutes until soft.
- Wash and dice the beetroot, drizzle with olive oil if prefered, and bake it in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until soft.
- Preheat a nonstick pan over mediuem heat.
- Meanwhile slice the red cabbage and figs.
- Add the thinly sliced red cabbage with about 1 tbsp of water to the pan and sauté until the water has evaporated. Then fry the red cabbage for a few minutes more until it starts to get soft.
- When the quinoa is ready add the lemon juice and stir until combined.
- Mix quinoa, red cabbage, roasted beetroot, figs and scallion. Top with black and blueberries.
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