This recipe for quinoa salad is a summer salad that is fun to eat, easy to prepare, and will leave you full of energy to enjoy your day. This perfect quinoa spinach strawberry salad with avocado chunks and a perfect balsamic vinaigrette will soon become your favorite one.
ingredients
- Spinach. Baby spinach or kale work well here.
- Strawberries. Use fresh and firm strawberries, and stem and dice them before adding them to the salad.
- Avocado. It is important to use a firm avocado, as you don’t want it to get all mushy. You want the avocado pieces to hold their shape in the salad.
- Quinoa. I like to make this salad pretty often during the summer. That is why I try to have a container of cooked quinoa in my fridge all the time.
- Vinaigrette. This quinoa spinach salad calls for a very simple balsamic vinegar vinaigrette. This dressing will bring all the freshness of the salad ingredients.
- Pinenuts and fresh basil leaves. If you do not have pinenuts you could use walnuts or pecans.
How to make the quinoa salad with spinach and strawberries?
First, if you don’t have cooked quinoa, start by doing that. It is better to let the quinoa cool completely before adding it to the salad. Hot quinoa will wilt the spinach and brown the avocado. And no, we don’t want that. Skip this step if you have cooked quinoa in your fridge.
While the quinoa is cooking prep your greens, fruit, and vinaigrette. If the spinach leaves are pretty large, chop them a bit. Place the greens in a salad bowl (affiliate link), and add the cold or at least room temperature quinoa, and the vinaigrette.
Mix carefully, so all the greens are lightly covered with the dressing. Finish the salad with the diced strawberries, avocado, pinenuts, and basil leaves.
Tips and tricks for the best quinoa spinach salad
- Use fresh ingredients, the better the ingredients, the better the flavors of the salad.
- A good substitution for strawberries will be blueberries or even raspberries.
- A good addition to this quinoa spinach salad is sliced cucumbers. Cucumbers are always fresh and perfect for a summer day.
- I like to use really good balsamic vinegar, but raspberry vinegar or even red wine vinegar work great here.
So here is the recipe for this quinoa summer salad with avocado and strawberries, and I promise you’ll love it. It is easy to prepare, healthy, delicious, and super fun to eat.
Best of all, it will leave you feeling light and full of energy. If you make it and like it, please share the recipe and the blog.
Perfect quinoa spinach strawberry salad with avocado
Equipment
- Salad bowl
Ingredients
Quinoa
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 ¾ cup water
Dressing
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Salad
- 4 handfuls of chopped spinach
- 1 cup diced strawberries
- 1 avocado cubes
- 1/4 cup pine nuts
- 6 leaves of basil
Instructions
INSTRUCTIONS
- Put the quinoa and water in a pot with a lid over low heat. When there is very little water on the edges of the pot, turn it off and leave it covered. Leave it aside.
- While there is the quinoa. In a bowl or bottle put the ingredients of the dressing, vinegar, salt and olive oil. Mix and taste, make it rich. Leave it aside.
- When the quinoa is done, fluff with a fork until it is completely loose and cold.
- Put it in a large bowl and mix with the spinach. Add dressing and mix.
- Put the strawberries, the avocado and the pine nuts and mix very carefully not to beat.
- Finish with basil leaves.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
information
Nutritional information of this recipe is only an estimate, the accuracy for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.