Italian quinoa salad is a simple, healthy, and delicious side dish that pairs well with many different meals. Featuring hearty quinoa, a myriad of fresh crunchy vegetables, and a few herbs all tossed in zesty Italian dressing.
Tips, Tricks & Suggestions
- Let’s talk quinoa
- Dried to cooked ratio: You will need roughly 3 cups of cooked and cooled quinoa for today’s salad. And typically 1 cup of dried quinoa will result in 3 cups cooked.
- How to cook quinoa: If you’ve never cooked quinoa before then you’ll be happy to know that it can easily be made in a pot over your stovetop, In a rice cooker, or even in an instant pot.
- What type of quinoa: Feel free to use any type/color of quinoa for today’s recipe. However, I will say that I’m partial to tri-color quinoa as it adds a nice visual “pop” to the salad.
- Make it ahead of time: Of course, the quinoa needs to be chilled for this salad. So make it at least 1 day ahead and leave it in your fridge. But if you want to get extra prep work out of the way you can also chop up all of the veggies a couple of days in advance. And then simply toss everything with the dressing when you’re ready to eat.
- Italian dressing: Feel free to use any store-bought brand of Italian dressing for this salad. But I highly recommend you check out our recipe on how to make Italian Dressing for yourself. Trust me it is so much better!
- Add cheese/protein: You can easily turn this salad from a side dish into a full-on meal by adding in some cheese or protein. Any sort of Italian cheese like shaved parmesan, or mozzarella balls will pair well. Heck even crumbled feta will work! And as for protein either grilled chicken or salmon cut up into bite-size pieces are my favorite options. But really it’s your salad so the choice is entirely up to you.
Other Salads You Might Enjoy
Italian Quinoa Salad
Total time: 12 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients
3 Cups cooked quinoa, cooled
1½ Cups cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1½ Cups Persian cucumber, diced
½ Cup of shallot or red onion, diced
½ Cup of pitted olives (Casteverano or Kalamata), sliced in half
¼ Cup of pine nuts
¼ Cup of basil, parsley, or both, minced
⅓ Cup of Italian dressing, or more to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Combine: Get out a large mixing bowl and add the quinoa, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, olives, pine nuts, and herbs to it.
- Dress: Pour the ⅓ cup of Italian dressing into the bowl along with a pinch of salt and pepper. Then use two spoons to toss everything together.
- Rest & taste: Let the salad rest for 10 minutes so that all the ingredients can soak up the dressing. Then taste the salad and add additional dressing, salt, and/or pepper to your liking.
- Serve the Italian quinoa salad and enjoy!
Italian Quinoa Salad
Italian quinoa salad is a simple, healthy, and delicious side dish that pairs well with many different meals. Featuring hearty quinoa, a myriad of fresh crunchy vegetables, and a few herbs all tossed in zesty Italian dressing.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 3 Cups cooked quinoa cooled
- 1½ Cups cherry tomatoes sliced in half
- 1½ Cups Persian cucumber diced
- ½ Cup of shallot or red onion diced
- ½ Cup of pitted olives Castelvetrano or Kalamata, sliced in half
- ¼ Cup of pine nuts
- ¼ Cup of basil parsley, or both, minced
- ⅓ Cup of Italian dressing or more to taste
- Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Combine: Get out a large mixing bowl and add the quinoa, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, olives, pine nuts, and herbs to it.
- Dress: Pour the ⅓ cup of Italian dressing into the bowl along with a pinch of salt and pepper. Then use two spoons to toss everything together.
- Rest & taste: Let the salad rest for 10 minutes so that all the ingredients can soak up the dressing. Then taste the salad and add additional dressing, salt, and/or pepper to your liking.
- Serve the Italian quinoa salad and enjoy!
