If you wish to take "eat the rainbow" literally (and don't want a bag of skittles), then this is one for you. This salad is super quick to throw together, vibrant in both colour and flavour, and extremely easy. You basically cook your quinoa, chop up your veggies, and throw it all together! Chuck this into a tub, and carry it off to school/uni/work, or store in the fridge for the next day. Because we all know that everything tastes better when it's classed as leftovers.
This salad contains protein from the quinoa and red kidney beans, healthy fats from the avocado, and of is (of course) chock full of vitamins and minerals from the pepper, tomato, and kale. Feel free to throw in more vegetables depending what is hanging around in your fridge, or add some grilled fish, chicken, or a soft poached egg...
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup uncooked mixed quinoa and bulgur wheat (I get mine from Tesco) + 1 cup freshly boiled water
- 1/4tsp chilli powder
- 1/8th tsp turmeric
- Freshly cracked black pepper, salt, and garlic powder, to taste
- 5-6 fresh basil leaves, torn up
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
- 150g red kidney beans
- 1 small handful kale
- 1/2 ripe haas avocado, chopped into large chunks
- 1/4 large lemon
Method
- Begin with getting the quinoa on to cook: in a small pan combine the quinoa and bulgur wheat with the water. Leave it on a high heat until boiling, and then add in the turmeric and chilli powder. Turn down to a medium/low heat, and set a timer for 15 minutes. With around three minutes remaining, throw in the beans to heat through. Once cooked the quinoa should have absorbed all of the water, and be fluffy in texture. Remove from the heat and place to one side. Lets get started prepping the rest of the ingredients...
- In a large bowl combine the beans, basil leaves, tomato, red bell pepper, and avocado.
- Throw the kale into the microwave for approximately one minute, until wilted. Add this to the bowl as well.
- Tip in the quinoa, add the black pepper, salt, and garlic powder, and fold everything together.
- Whack it into a bowl, top with a wedge of lemon that you can squeeze over it as desired, and dig in...
Labels: avocado, bulgur wheat, easy, Food, healthy, healthy fats, lunch, quinoa, red kidney beans, student, vegan, vegetarian
