Jeanine here, with spring on a plate. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with big salads full of spring’s most vibrant and crisp veggies. It’s been so fun to play around with various combinations of colors and textures, and this one’s my current favorite.
I started with green leeks, green beans and mint, and then added avocado and toasted pistachios to carry out my all-green color theme. This makes for a delicious lunch or a perfect patio dinner alongside some grilled salmon.
Green Bean & Avocado Quinoa Salad
Ingredients:
*serves 2
- 1 tablespoon mustard seeds, lightly toasted
- splashes of olive oil
- handful of green beans (thin ones)
- 1/2 cup leeks
- juice of 1 lemon & lemon zest
- big handful of dandelion greens (or spinach or arugula)
- 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
- a few sprigs of fresh mint
- a few tablespoons toasted chopped pistachios
- 1/2 avocado sliced
Instructions:
- Heat a small pan and toast the mustard seeds until just fragrant. Add oil, green beans and leeks, salt. Cook until tender but still crunchy. Add a big squeeze of lemon to the pan. Add greens to wilt slightly. Remove from heat and toss with quinoa, feta cheese, more lemon and lemon zest.
- For best flavor let this chill together for 30 or so minutes.
- Before serving, add toasted pistachios, avocado and a few more mint sprigs. Taste and adjust seasonings.
photos & recipe: Love & Lemons
So yummy! Looks fresh and I love a good salad with different textures.
Quinn Cooper Style
Yum! Any all-green salad is fine by me — and I’ve been looking for uses of dandelion greens, perfection!
Me too 🙂 I’ve been using dandelion greens a lot lately… tossing them into pretty much anything I’d put spinach in.
What a lovely seasonal salad!! I can’t wait to try it!
This is gorgeous! I love all of the shades of green.
Wow! What a lovely spring summer recipe. We’re signing up for CSA today in effort to eat more local, seasonally, sustainably produced food and I cannot wait until we have the ingredients to whip this up! Thanks for sharing. Your blog rules, can’t wait to follow along!
Thanks! It’s so great to hear more and more people are signing up for CSA’s!
I’m always looking for more recipes with quinoa! Being a vegetarian makes finding protein in salads a challenge! Thanks for this post.
You’re welcome, I love quinoa! It’s so versatile.
I’m def making this salad this week (avocado heaven!). Thanks for posting it!!!
Ada | http://www.adasinteriordesign.com/blog
Sure, hope you like! I’m loving everything with avocados lately 🙂
Yum! Definitely trying this soon! I just can’t collect enough avocado recipes!!
I have made this for my family a couple of times this summer. It is a hit! When I didn’t have quinoa on hand, I used wild rice. I love the flavor that the mustard seed gives.