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Mexican quinoa salad with lime wedges and jalapeno slices in a blue bowl
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4.60 from 5 votes

Mexican Quinoa Salad

This Mexican quinoa salad will blow you away with all Mexican flavors to it. While quinoa cooks prep most ingredients so you have it ready in 20 minutes. It might not be traditional Mexican salad and quinoa might not be Mexican at all, but it is for sure one healthy Mexican-flavor inspired salad. It’s loaded with veggies and dressed in the simplest salad dressing – cumin lime dressing.
Prep Time12 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Course: Salad
Cuisine: Mexican
Servings: 4 servings
Calories: 318kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 cup uncooked quinoa
  • 2 cups vegetable or chicken broth or any low sodium broth
  • 1 can 15 oz sweet corn kernels
  • ¾ can black beans
  • cup red onions diced
  • 3 medium ripe tomatoes diced
  • cup bell peppers diced (mix of red and yellow bell peppers)
  • 1 or 2 jalapenos adjust as per spice tolerance level
  • ¼ cup cilantro chopped
  • Salt to taste
  • ¼ cup Cojita cheese crumbled (we skipped cheese)

For dressing

  • 3 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon cumin powder
  • 2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 clove garlic
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions

  • Place quinoa in a fine mesh sieve. Rinse thoroughly under running cold water. Rub and swish quinoa with your hand while rinsing. Add quinoa into the broth with a pinch of salt. Bring it to boil. Turn down the heat, cover and cook until done, about 15 minutes. Uncover, you should see tiny spiral around the quinoa seeds. Gently fluff it with fork and let it cool.
  • While quinoa cooks let’s prepare rest of the ingredients for the salad. Dice onions, tomatoes, bell peppers. Roast corn kernels until it gets charred. Finely chop jalapenos, cilantro. Whisk all ingredients for dressing in a small bowl and set aside.
  • In a salad bowl mix prepped black beans, corn kernels, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, jalapeños, salt. Add cooled quinoa lime dressing and mix well.
  • Serve immediately at room temperature.

Notes

Use fine mesh sieve to rinse quinoa that will get rid of the bitter saponin coating from it. 
Cooking quinoa in vegetable or chicken stock enhances more flavors to otherwise bland and boring quinoa!
You can mix it up with any of your favorite vegetable in this salad. 
Go ahead and add few pieces of grilled chicken to the salad bowl if you aren't vegan.
Always pour the dressing only just minute before serve. Dressed salad unfortunately doesn’t sit well for very long.
Make sure to serve the salad the same day if you add spinach or avocado to it.
 
 
 
Nutritional Info – Please keep in mind that nutritional information provided is only a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.
 

Nutrition

Serving: 0g | Calories: 318kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 9g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 8mg | Sodium: 671mg | Potassium: 533mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 1929IU | Vitamin C: 35mg | Calcium: 87mg | Iron: 3mg