Quinoa and Kale Salad with Cranberries and Toasted Seeds

The title tells you everything you need to know about this recipe. I felt like I have more quinoa salads in me, so I needed to be specific so that I don't cannibalise my own content 😊

Quinoa is a seed that has the texture of a grain. It has a mild, nutty flavour. When cooked right (we’ll get to that), it’s soft and fluffy with a wonderful mouth feel. It’s light, but surprising filling. We cook it using the absorption method. Then stir though a light dressing and allow to cool to room temperature. Before serving we stir though shredded kale and chopped dried cranberries. Roasted seeds add a crunchy nutty topping.

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We cook the quinoa in stock (rather than plain water) so that it absorbs more flavour. I use my vegetable stock paste – I can swirl it into cold water (no need to dissolve in hot). It’s low FODMAP (no onion or garlic) and it keeps *forever in the fridge.

Undercooked quinoa or waterlogged quinoa is not worth eating. Maybe all the quinoa haters out there have had bad quinoa. Follow the instructions here for perfectly cooked, fluffy quinoa.

😀What’s so good about Quinoa and Kale Salad with Cranberries and Toasted Seeds ?

• hearty and interesting enough to eat by itself, but simple enough to be a great side salad.
• great balance of textures – soft quinoa, chewy cranberries, crunchy seeds.
• highly nutritious. Quinoa is one of the few non-meat sources that is a complete protein.
• versatile – gluten-free, vegan, nut-free, low FODMAP. Safe (but delicious) potluck option.
• great make-ahead. The quinoa part is best made a few hours before serving and allowed to rest at room temperature. Finishing it to serve takes only minutes.
• fail-proof cooking method gives fluffy, light and separate grains.
• portable – the salad won’t go soggy or floppy. Not too juicy. Packs well for lunch boxes and picnics.
• keeps well in the fridge for up to three days. Refresh it with a touch more oil, lemon juice and seasoning and re-toss.

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• 😀What’s so good about Quinoa and Kale Salad with Cranberries and Toasted Seeds ?
• 🥘 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 📖 Recipe
• 💭Other Salads To Try

🥘 Ingredients

Quinoa – available as white, red or black grains. Or a combo (sold as ‘tricolour’). It’s a seed, rather than a grain. Looks like couscous grains when raw, but magically puffs up and separates on cooking. A little goes a long way. 1 cup of quinoa used in this recipe swells to 3 cups worth of soft grains. If you look closely at cooked quinoa, you'll see small, curly ‘tails’ that separate from the seed.

Sunflower & Pumpkin Seeds - toasted to add a roasted, nutty crunch. It's worth making extra, not least because it seems a shame to put the oven on for 4 tablespoons' worth of seeds. Toasted seeds are great to sprinkle on other salads, cereals, yoghurt, or eaten by the handful as a snack.

Stock – gets ‘sucked’ up by the quinoa as it cooks, for flavour and seasoning. You can use whatever type you like. If you’re feeding this to vegetarians/vegans, you’ll want to stick to veggie stock.

Olive Oil & Lemon Juice – shaken together to force them to blend. We add simple seasoning to enhance the flavours. Makes a very light and fresh dressing for subtle flavour and a nice mouthfeel.

Cranberries – add a pop of colour, sweet and tart flavour.

Kale – this helps to bulk out the salad, add another texture and round out the meal. We’ve got our protein (quinoa and seeds), carbs (quinoa) and greens in one delightful dish. It looks pretty too, especially when you take the time to shred it finely.

🔪 Instructions

Toast Seeds

Sooo much nicer than untoasted! It crisps them up and enhances the nutty flavour. It's worth taking the extra step. Make more than you need! Lay in a thin layer on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in a oven at 180°C for 5-8 minutes. Please keep a close eye on them so that they don’t burn, shaking them around a few times for even heat distribution. If you haven’t got the oven on for anything else, you can toast them in a small frying pan on the stove top. Keep them on the move to stop them burning.

Do you need to rinse quinoa before cooking?

Quinoa has a natural coating called saponin, which can make it taste bitter or soapy if not removed. Most commercially available quinoa is pre-rinsed, but an extra rinse is still recommended. The packet I used didn’t specify whether it was rinsed or not. However, it suggested rinsing it first in the cooking instructions. It’s probably a good practice to get into. Rinse in a sieve under running water and shake off as much water as possible. We want to control the quinoa to water ratio when we cook using the absorption method.

Cook Quinoa

Many recipes suggest 1 ½ -2 parts water to 1 part quinoa. Please don’t use this ratio! This is way too much water, especially if you rinsed your quinoa first. There will always be some residual water left on the grains after rinsing. 1 ¼ parts water to 1 part quinoa will yield perfectly fluffy, separate grains. In this recipe we substitute water with stock for extra flavour. We want all the stock to be sucked up by the quinoa with none left over. Excess liquid will give us soggy quinoa.

It doesn’t seem like a lot of quinoa. Don’t worry, it grows a lot!

Bring the stock to the boil over high heat so that the whole surface is on the move. Then, clamp the lid on, reduce the heat to a minimum and leave to cook for 15 minutes. Set a timer and DO NOT LIFT THE LID. The quinoa is relying on the liquid inside the pot to cook to perfection. Lift the lid and you lose some of this to steam. When the 15 minutes is up, take the pot off the heat and leave to sit (STILL NOT LIFTING THE LID!) for another 15 minutes. This resting period allows any remaining moisture to be absorbed. The photo below shows the cooked quinoa. It has absorbed all the stock and just needs fluffing up to loosen the grains.

Add Dressing to Warm Quinoa

Shake the lemon juice up with oil in a small screw-top jar to force them to combine and pour over the quinoa. Toss gently through. You can use a fork to rake through the quinoa grains to separate them. Put the lid back on and leave the quinoa to cool down to room temperature until ready to serve.

Serve!

Just before serving, stir through shredded kale leaves and finely chopped cranberries. Strip the kale stalks with your fingertips to pull off the leaves. Remove any remaining thicker veins in the leaves by cutting out with a sharp knife. Both kale and cranberries will keep their colour better if they’re added to cooled quinoa. Sprinkle with the toasted seeds.

📖 Recipe

💭Other Salads To Try