Quinoa salad with roasted summer vegetables, walnuts, and a citrusy dressing. This easy vegan dish can serve as a light vegetarian dinner, or a side dish at any of your summer gatherings!
Were you with me last summer when I was growing the biggest squash on the face of the earth in my small little planter boxes? Do you remember my 1.5-foot zucchini squash…
…that I turned into zucchini ribbon salad, chocolate zucchini cookies, baked zucchini and leek fritters and more?
For those who have grown zucchini, you know that it is not a wonderful idea to allow the squash to get this big because the vegetable becomes seedy, tough and tasteless. Bigger is not better. In my defense, I would leave for work with a 2-inch zucchini on the vine and come home to find it had grown a foot!
Okay, that may be a bit of a stretch (ba-dum-ching), but in essence, my lack of attention-to-garden resulted in monster zucchini and yellow squash, which meant I needed to come up with creative ways of using said vegetables.
Needless to say, I did not grow zucchini this year (or anything for that matter…my green thumb is taking a one-year hiatus).
But if I had, roasted summer vegetable quinoa salad would be where it’s at.
Do you love it? I love it! Checkity check it:
Roasted Summer Vegetable Quinoa Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup quinoa
- 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil or olive oil
- 1/2 white onion diced
- 1 medium zucchini squash chopped
- 1 medium yellow squash chopped
- 2 cups green beans chopped
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 lemon zested and juiced
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt to taste
- 1/2 cup raw walnuts chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare the quinoa according to package instructions.
- Spread the onion, zucchini, yellow squash, and green beans on a large baking sheet and drizzle with 1 tablespoon of grapeseed (or olive) oil, and sprinkle with sea salt. Use your hands to toss everything together until well-coated. Wrap the cloves of garlic in foil and place the garlic and the sheet of veggies in the oven. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes, or until veggies are golden-brown and tender. Once cool enough to handle, unwrap and peel the garlic.
- Add the cooked quinoa and roasted vegetables to a large serving bowl. Finely chop the roasted garlic and add it to the serving bowl along with the zest and juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons of lemon juice). Add the remaining tablespoon of oil, sea salt and walnuts and toss everything together until well combined. Taste the salad for flavor and add more sea salt and/or lemon juice to taste.
any sub in for the green beans? I’ve never roasted them or loved them in a cold salad but love the thought of this to switch up my sweet potato/bell pepper/broccoli medleys?
Roast veggies at 400?
Yup, I do it all the time 🙂
Heading over to check out the recipe! This post made me laugh because we spend hours everyday diving head first into prickly squash plants to harvest for the AMAZING grocery stores who take it off our hands. I’m so stinking sick of squash right now the rash on my arm is pretty tired of them too!
Here’s the deal: I got so tired of monstrous zucchini staring at me through the window that I didn’t garden this year either. Also: I’m still overwhelmed with zucchini from other people who are growing way too much. So, the way I see it is, never plant zucchini and you will still have plenty to eat!
Heading to FF! 🙂
I like this philosophy! The next time I grow a garden (hopefully next summer), I won’t be growing squash…it takes up way too much space and frankly, I’m kind of affraid of it! I’ll willingly accept zucchini donations from the brave souls who grow it 🙂
I remember that picture! Craaazzy!! Lucky you that your garden is so conducive to larger than life produce! I just used my last zucchini but I have a butternut squash to use up. This salad looks so good and the perfect recipe to use it in!
You had me at roasted. Roasting veggies just makes them infinitely better. This salad sounds fabulous! And that is one big zucchini!
That zucchini is huge! Whoa baby!! This salad sounds perfect! I love it already!
The second summer we were married, we had a square foot garden, and had so many zucchini that were enormous (and I believe that you left for work and they were 3″ and then a foot when you got home), I started ding-dong-ditching houses with the zucchini late at night. This was when I was pregnant with Stephie, so I’ll leave you with THAT image. lol This salad looks yummy. Off to check out the recipe.
Oh my gosh, this story makes me want to hug you! I can’t believe you ding dong ditch gifted your neighbors! You have a very kind soul…and a tremendous amount of humor!
OH MY!!! That is the biggest zucchini I have ever seen!! I have never grown zucchini but Ive wanted to try. Ill be interested to see if mine can get that big! And the salad looks amazing, the perfect meal 🙂
That zucchini is monstrous! I love it!
I’m holding back so many “that’s what she said” jokes…but I do love the look of this salad! Do I spy walnuts? Off to see the recipe!
You do! you do spy walnuts! No need to hold back those “that’s what she said’s” those NEVER get old…which probably means I could take a class in maturity, but that’s neither here nor there…