Christmas Salad – Quinoa Tabbouleh

This salad recipe is a real crowd-pleaser and will go down a treat at Christmas lunches or dinners. With a red and green colour palette to boot, you’ll get extra brownie points for enhancing the table’s festive feel! Tabbouleh is traditionally made with bulgar wheat, but I’ve bucked tradition yet again and have used quinoa in my own variation of this popular Middle Eastern dish. It makes a great amount, so is ideal for Christmas gatherings & summer BBQ’s or you could halve the recipe if necessary (it works very well for work lunches the following day!) Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, full of feasts with family.

Gluten-free

Ingredients:
2 cups of quinoa, rinsed
2 cups of water
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped finely
1 cup of sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
½ cup of freshly chopped mint
½ cup of freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley
Juice of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 lemon
150g of toasted pine nuts
100g of rocket (as a base to serve on)
¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil
100g of feta cheese
Sea salt & cracked pepper, to taste

Method:

1. In a saucepan, bring the quinoa and water to the boil with a pinch of salt and the garlic
2. Once boiling, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes
3. Turn the heat off and keep the lid on for 10 minutes
4. Transfer the quinoa to a mixing bowl and add sun-dried tomatoes, lemon zest and juice
5. Allow to cool and then mix through the fresh herbs
6. Serve on a bed of rocket, topped with the toasted pine nuts, crumbled feta cheese, sea salt, cracked pepper and a drizzle of olive oil

Nutritional Bite: Quinoa Quinoa (pronounced ‘keen-wah’) has a truly ancient origin, going back to the Inca civilization and is now known as a ‘super grain’ befitting its amazing nutrition profile. Quinoa is high in protein and one of the few plant foods that contains sufficient amounts of all 9 amino acids.