Friends of ours recently had a baby and I signed up to bring them a meal. I absolutely love this tradition of bringing food and gifts to families with new babies. Parents of new babies don’t get the downtime they deserve to recover and bond with their new family member, so if I can help with that a little by taking dinner off their minds, I’m more than happy to do it.
This Mediterranean quinoa salad is going to be part of their dinner as well as ours. I’m serving it alongside garlic lemon roasted chicken breasts. It’s quick to prepare and great for a make ahead dinner since it’s meant to be eaten cold.
I like this combination of sun dried tomatoes and fresh, sweet peppers. Most Mediterranean salads have a lot of fresh, crunchy ingredients like raw tomatoes, cucumber, and radishes, but I wanted to change it up a bit. You still get the crunch from the peppers and the fresh from the lemon and parsley, but the garbanzos lend a little weight and umami to the dish while the sun dried tomatoes give this salad a little earthy, chewy sweetness. Mix in some salty, tangy crumbled feta cheese and the taste symphony is complete.
Ingredients // serves 6-8 as a side
Salad:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
3oz crumbled feta cheese
1 package or 3oz julienne cut sun dried tomatoes
8-10 sweet mini peppers
2T chopped fresh parsley
1 can rinsed and drained garbanzo beans
Dressing:
Juice of 1 lemon
1tsp salt
1/2tsp pepper
1tsp honey
1/4 cup olive oil
Recipe //
Combine quinoa with two cups of water and bring to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer and let the quinoa simmer for about 12 minutes until all the water has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and let it cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Halve the mini peppers and remove the seeds and veins. Cut each half in half, then cut into slivers. Chop the parsley. Combine all salad ingredients in a bowl.
In a separate bowl whisk together the lemon juice, salt, pepper, honey and olive oil. Pour over the salad and mix well. Refrigerate the salad until cold and then serve alongside roast chicken.
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The Cheerful Kitchen 