Kale quinoa salad tossed with an incredible tangy tahini vinaigrette. Packed with leafy greens, heart healthy avocado, nutty quinoa, crunchy kale, and roasted beets. This naturally gluten free and vegan salad is perfect for parties or for packing for lunch. Seriously satisfying and so healthy! You’ll make this again and again!
Servings 4servings
Ingredients
For the vinaigrette:
1/4cupolive oil
Fresh Juice of 1 lemon
¼cuptahini
1clovegarlicminced
1tbsphoneyor maple syrup for vegan option
1tbspold fashioned mustardor normal yellow mustard
½tspsalt
¼tspblack pepper
For the salad:
1/3cupquinoa
2/3cuplentil
3medium heads of beetrootto roast
250gbroccoli florets
3cupskale leavesroughly chopped
½avocadocut into cubes
1cupbaby spinach
¼cupdatespitted ad cut into cubes
Instructions
For the vinaigrette:
Prepare the dressing by adding all ingredients to a mixing bowl and whisking to combine. Taste and adjust salt and pepper to taste. Set in the fridge to use later.
For the salad:
Prepare the beets: Preheat oven to 200 C◦ and lightly grease a baking sheet with some olive oil. Wash, peel and cut your beets. Spread them on the baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and some black pepper. Toss to coat then bake for 15-20 minutes until fragrant and lightly browned. If you like your beets crispier you can roast them for extra 10-15 minutes, but I prefer mine soft a little bit. Remove from oven and set aside.
Cook the lentils: rinse your lentils thoroughly. Add to a small pan with 1 ½ cup of water. Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer for 20-30 minutes uncovered or until liquid is absorbed and lentil cooked. Fluff with a fork and transfer to a bowl to cool down. set aside.
Cook the quinoa: rinse your quinoa thoroughly. Add to a small pan with ¾ cup of water. Bring to boil. Then cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat fluff quinoa with a fork and transfer to same bowl of lentil and mix to cool down. Set aside.
Prepare the broccoli: bring some water with salt to boil. Add the broccoli florets only for 1 minutes and then quickly dip it in a cold bath of ice. To stop them from cooking any further. Set aside in a strainer to drain.
Massage your kale: While the veggies, lentils and quinoa are cooking. Add the kale to a large mixing bowl with 2 tbsp of the dressing and massage for about 3 minutes with hands to soften. This allows the kale to take on the dressing flavors. This is only for kale, skip this step for the spinach.
add the beets, lentils, quinoa, broccoli, avocado, spinach and dates to the large bowl with kales. Add the dressing and toss to coat. Serve and enjoy!
Leftovers keep for up to a few days in the fridge, though best when fresh.
Video
Notes
If you want to prepare this in advance mix everything together except the spinach and avocado, to keep them from changing color. Keep the spinach separate and cut the avocado just before adding and mixing with the salad.
I usually use honey in the dressing but if you want to keep this recipe 100% vegan you switch to maple syrup or any sweet syrup you like. I tried it with maple syrup and taste great.