This Vegan Quinoa Salad is packed with plant-based protein, roasted vegetables and crunchy maple cashews. It makes for a perfect nutritious dinner or a great make-ahead lunch!
The best salad recipes have a little bit of everything. We like ours with both raw and cooked elements, lots of texture, and a delicious dressing that brings everything together.
In the case of this vegan quinoa salad, we pair fresh greens with cooked grains, roasted vegetables, dried fruit and the BEST crunchy maple cashews. A simple citrus maple mustard vinaigrette pulls all of the flavors together. It’s delicious, untraditional, and perfect for meal prep.
These handcrafted maple nuts are INSANE. (Insanely good, that is!). They have just the right amount of salty/sweet coating, and they’re vegan, which is unusual for coated nuts.
They make Maple Cashews, Pecans and Walnuts, all of which work great in this recipe. We chose to feature cashews because they’re our favorite nut, but you could really use any of the three.
Plus, we absolutely love that Lynne and Darren from Detroit Gourmet Nuts take a portion of their sales for the year and donate it to mostly Detroit area nonprofits that they feel are doing the most good for residents.
Their company name’s initials, DGNC, also are the initials for Doing Good and Noble Causes, which they named their awards. Past nonprofit award winners include Keep Growing Detroit, Alternatives for Girls, Foodlab Detroit, Mercy Education Project and Darkroom Detroit. Amazing, right?
Vegan Quinoa Salad with Roasted Vegetables
This vegan quinoa salad is super easy to prep ahead of time.
Simply cook a batch of quinoa according to package directions. We cook ours in vegetable broth to add extra flavor, but if you’d prefer to use water that’s perfectly fine, too.
We like to cook more than I need for a specific recipe so I have extra to throw into another meal later in the week! Cooked quinoa stores really well in the refrigerator. If you need to reheat it for another recipe, just pop it in the microwave (or on the stove) with a splash of water.
The rest of the salad is very easy to assemble. We opted for Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes as our roasted vegetables. You can easily substitute with just about any other vegetable that tastes good roasted. Here are a few ideas:
Squash
Radishes
Onions
Cauliflower
Potatoes
Carrots
Beets
Roasted vegetables also store well in the refrigerator, so you can make them ahead of time and enjoy in lunches all week.
The salad dressing can also be made ahead of time. (Sensing a pattern here? This is truly a perfect meal prep salad!) Simply whisk everything together, or add all of the ingredients to a jar with a lid, seal, and give it a good shake.
When you’re ready to serve, toss all of the components in the dressing, serve atop a bed of greens (optional – we used baby kale) and top with crunchy maple cashews. Yum!
ingredients
1 1/2 cups dry quinoa
3 cups low sodium vegetable broth
1 ½ cup quartered brussels sprouts
1 ½ cup sweet potato, diced (peeled, optional)
1/3 cup shallots, finely diced
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 cups arugula or baby kale
1/3 cup unsweetened dried cranberries
Orange Maple Vinaigrette:
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tbsp orange juice
1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp maple syrup
½ tbsp orange zest
½ tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
instructions
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Cook quinoa according to package directions in vegetable broth. If you’d prefer to use water as the cooking liquid, that’s fine too, but you may wish to taste and add more salt and some olive oil while it is cooking.
Remove stray leaves after chopping brussels sprouts as these will burn during roasting. Toss brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes with shallots, parsley, olive oil, salt and pepper. Transfer to a sheet pan and roast for 25-30 minutes, stirring once or twice while they roast.
Meanwhile, whisk together all ingredients for dressing and pour over quinoa. Stir well.
When vegetables are done roasting, add to bowl with quinoa along with kale, cranberries and maple cashews. Toss well and enjoy warm or refrigerate and enjoy cold at a later time.
Recipe + Blog Post Brought To You By Crowded Kitchen
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Yield: 4 servings 1x
Category: Salads
Method: Oven
Cuisine: American