You can achieve the shredded vegetables with a vegetable peeler, shredding on the shredding blade of a food processor, or just a plain old grater. I used my new vegetable spiralizer and had fun doing so, but don't let a lack of one stand in your way. Use any vegetables that you want in this one, I think broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, or pea pods would be great additions, and as the spring months beginning to thaw things out around here, I'm going to be adding in all kinds of different things.
This is a huge batch of salad, it made up about four meals between my husband and I throughout the week, so if you are making it for the first time or not for such long-term purposes feel free to cut it in half. Although I will say, go ahead and make the full recipe for the dressing, once cooled, it makes and excellent salad dressing for a spinach salad, or as a marinade for any meat you want to grill.
First we're going to start the quinoa:
6 Cups Water
3 Cups Quinoa
3Tbsp Butter
Bring the water and butter to a boil in a large pot. Add the quinoa to the boiling water and cover with a lid. Turn the heat down to a simmer and let the quinoa go for 15-17 minutes. I typically stir the pot a couple of times just to make sure everything is cooking evenly and nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot. Once the time is up, and you can see the little white membrane on the quinoa, you are done. remove the lid and fluff it up a little.
Next we'll make the dressing:
6 Cloves Garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. Red Pepper Flakes
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/4 Toasted Sesame Oil
6 Tbsp Honey
6 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tsp Salt
To a small pan over low heat add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and both oils. Bring this mixture just
barely to a simmer and watch it for about 30 seconds to 1 minute so that you don't burn the garlic. Shut it off and remove from heat. Let the oil mixture steep for as long as you can. I usually start it right after I put the quinoa on, and then finish it up after I chop up all the veggies.
When you're ready to finish the dressing, you can strain out the red pepper flakes if you aren't looking for a lot of heat in the salad, but if you are, leave them in. You can then add, directly to the pan if you like the honey, soy sauce, and salt. Whisk together until combined. Set aside until you are ready to finish the salad.
Next we'll take care of the veggies:
In a gigantic bowl add as many chopped, sliced, or grated veggies as you want or the bowl can contain, I used:
3 Carrots Spiralized
3 Zucchini Spiralized
1 Red onions, cut in half and sliced into thin half moons
1 1/2 Bell Peppers, thinly sliced into strips
1 Cup Cilantro, roughly chopped
You could also add green onions, radishes, brocooli, cauliflower, corn, peas, tomatoes, etc. You can basically go wild. You are limited only by what your imagination and the size of your bowl.
Assemble the salad:
Optional garnishes if you have them on hand, sliced almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds.
To the vegetables in your bowl, add the cooked quinoa and dressing, and then stir to combine. Garnish with and and all of the crunchy options if you wish, and then put the bowl in the fridge for at least an hour to chill and let the dressing soak into the quinoa and vegetables.
SIDE NOTE:
You can go ahead and use just plain old spaghetti noodles instead of quinoa in this. For my purposes, next time I make it with quinoa, I'm going to shred or grate the vegetables instead of spiralizing them, the long "noodles" of zucchini didn't really synch up with the quinoa from a texture perspective. The last time I made this with noodles, the spiralized vegetables were amazing.
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