This quinoa salad with beets and spinach makes an easy vegan meal, cooked without the use of oil. Top with hot sauce or extra seasonings.
This is a hot salad.
Perhaps it is my appetite, since I spend many hours a week doing physical exercise, which makes it hard to only eat low-calorie vegetables. Or perhaps, it is only the sense of art and the pleasure of eating for its own sake. I wanted to make something with beets, since I am in beet mode now. Spinach looks like a colorful match, and to cook it oil free I paired these with the juice of an orange and, for quality carbohydrates and proteins, quinoa.
You can cook the quinoa and the beets ahead of time and make a large batch, storing the excess for future meals. Doing this saves you time and opens the door to new permutations with new ingredients for your next recipes.
Starting with reheating the beets, then adding the spinach allowed them to cook very lightly and retain much of their nutrients. Spinach reduces in volume considerably, between raw and cooked states. With the juice from the orange and a little bit of extra water, you will be able to avoid using oil for an oil-free recipe. Quinoa came at the end, since it was already cooked and only needed to absorb the extra liquid left, the surrounding flavors and their colors. Note the orange red colors on the quinoa, which happened by itself.
Hot quinoa salad with beets and spinach
Ingredients
- 4 oz cooked beets
- 1 lb cooked quinoa
- 2 oz spinach
- 4 tbsp water
- 1 orange
- hot sauce
Instructions
- Cook the quinoa and beets in advance, or for this recipe.
- Slice the beets and place them in a frying pan set to medium heat. Add the water, squeeze the orange and add the juice from it as well.
- Let it warm up for about 3 minutes, then add the spinach. Spinach is high volume raw, and low volume once steamed.
- It will reduce significantly as you stir. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the quinoa and stir once more. Serve immediately and add hot sauce.
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