Mexican Quinoa Salad

I found this delightful little recipe while searching for Mexican-inspired side dishes. We had some friends over for dinner and I was making Chicken Salsa Casserole. Our friends were bringing fruit salsa with cinnamon chips, but I wanted another appetizer as well (because I love food, duh).

Ingredients for Salad

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
• 11oz canned corn, drained
• 15oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 4 green onions, sliced
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 avocado, diced

Ingredients for Dressing

• 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
• 2 TBSP vegetable oil
• 3 TBSP honey
• 2 TBSP lime juice
• 2 tsp fresh jalapenos, minced
• 1/2 tsp dijon mustard or deli mustard
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black 

Directions

1. Put your quinoa and broth in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.
1. Optional if you want to serve this chilled: Once your quinoa is cooked, place the saucepan on a hot pad in the refrigerator while you are prepping the rest of the dish.
2. Dice you peppers, onion, avocado, and cilantro. Mix the peppers, onion, avocado, cilantro, black beans, and corn in a large bowl then set it aside. 
3. Blend the dressing ingredients in food processor. I don't own a food processor, so I used my blender. It worked fine. 
4. Once the quinoa has cooled, add it to your vegetable mix and stir. Pour the dressing over the mixture and stir again to thoroughly coat the ingredients. 

That's it! It's really simple and really tasty. 

Dicing and chopping

Mixing the veggies

I meant to snag a picture of it once it was all mixed together, but our friends arrived and we started eating it before I remembered. Oops.

Even though this has jalapenos in it, it is not spicy at all. One of our friends does not like spicy things (because she is obviously an alien), so I split this salad into two: one with jalapenos and one without. After tasting both of them, we determined there wasn't much of a difference. One was slightly sweeter than the other, but there was not a noticeable spice-factor to this dish. Maybe I had faulty jalapenos.

Nutrition Information

This makes 6-8 servings.

	Calories	Fat	Sat Fat	Sodium	Carbs	Fiber	Sugar	Protein
1 cup quinoa	688	11.2	0	4	124	12	12	24
2 cups vegetable broth	30	0	0	1060	6	0	4	0
1/2 red bell pepper	25	0.25	0	3.5	5	1.75	3.5	0.75
1/2 orange bell pepper	25	0	0	4	4	2	0	1
11oz canned corn	253	2.8	0.6	930	58.5	6	9.5	8
15oz black beans	385	3.5	0	1295	66.5	24.5	0	24.5
4 green onions	20	0	0	8	4.5	1.5	1.2	1.2
1/4 cup cilantro	1	0	0	2	0.1	0.1	0	0.1
1/2 avocado	161	14.5	2.15	7	8.5	6.5	0.65	2
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar	6	0	0	2	0.2	0	0.2	0
2 tbsp vegetable oil	240	28	4	0	0	0	0	0
3 tbsp honey	192	0	0	3	51	0	51	0.3
2 tbsp lime juice	8	0.1	0.1	1	2.6	0.1	0.5	0.1
2 tsp fresh jalapeno	2	0.1	0	0	0.5	0.2	0.3	0.1
1/2 tsp dijon mustard	2.5	0	0	60	0	0	0	0
1 small clove garlic	5	0	0	1	1	0.1	0	0.2
Total	2043.50	60.45	6.85	3380.50	332.40	54.75	82.85	62.25
Per serving (6)	340.58	10.08	1.14	563.42	55.40	9.13	13.81	10.38
Per serving (8)	255.44	7.56	0.86	422.56	41.55	6.84	10.36	7.78