Recipes

Summer Salads: Balanced Beetroot & Quinoa Salad with Sadie’s Kitchen

Posted on by Jennifer
Summer means a change in our eating habits. We long for meals that are quick, easy to prepare and a lighter alternative to the rich foods of the previous season. This week’s recipe comes from the lovely Dr Ciara Kelly of The Irish Balance. It’s a scrumptious salad of quinoa – high in plant-derived protein and a fantastic source of dietary fibre – and beetroot – packed full of vitamins, more fibre and folic acid – all of which aids a healthy gut. Oh, and don’t forget the bone broth…

Enjoy x

Summer is well and truly on the way, and with it, a slight change in our taste-buds. Gone are the warming pots of soup, stews and dahls we crave in winter – instead, it’s all about barbeques, salads, and dining al fresco. In this series of recipes with Sadie’s Kitchen, I’ll be sharing with you some super simple summer salad recipes that will give your taste-buds a treat, as well as being time-friendly to make.

Our days are busy – work, family, friends, hobbies, trying to live a healthy, balanced lifestyle – it can be as challenging as it sounds. At the weekend, we take a deep breath, try to regain the balance we might have misplaced during the week, and on Monday, we sigh and go again.

I’m a big fan of taking an hour or two on a Sunday afternoon to meal prep for the week ahead. Usually, that means making a couple of breakfasts and a big one-pot style salad or dinner dish that’s ready to go on those extra busy days. We all know mid-week is when our inner foodie just flops on the couch and refuses to move!

This first salad I’m sharing with the fantastic Sadie’s Kitchen Chicken Bone Broth is definitely one for your next meal preparation power hour. The central ingredient is quinoa, which is a source of plant-derived protein, slow-release energy and dietary fibre.

This salad also provides 3 servings of your 5, and the nuts and seeds provide you with some tasty healthy fats. As well as being made with all the goodness of a Sadie’s Kitchen bone broth! How’s that for a balanced meal? Let’s get cooking!

Recipe (Serves 4-5) Ingredients:

  • 200g of uncooked quinoa
  • 2 cups of broccoli florets, washed
  • 8 cherry tomatoes, washed and halved
  • 100g of cooked beetroot (i.e. from a store-bought jar), diced into chunks
  • 50g of raw hazelnuts, roughly chopped
  • 50g of pumpkin seeds
  • 1 pack of Sadie’s Kitchen Chicken Bone Broth
  •  300ml of water

Method:

  1. Prepare your hazelnuts and vegetables first, and set aside.
  2. Rinse the quinoa and add to a medium-sized pot with the Sadie’s Kitchen Chicken Bone

    Broth and water. Set the pot to boil on medium heat. Once boiling, turn the heat down to a simmer on the lowest heat, and cook according to the time on your pack. A great tip is to check the quinoa every 5 minutes. Once you see the little tails pop up on your quinoa, turn off the heat as this is a sign it’s cooked to crunch.

  3. Drain the quinoa and leave aside in the colander for 5 minutes to allow the extra liquid to drain off from it.
  4. Take a large mixing bowl, and in it add the broccoli, tomatoes, beetroot, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, and quinoa. Mix well to combine.
  5. Finally, add some of the liquid from your beetroot jar, and watch your quinoa turn pink!
  6. Serve immediately as a side dish with a barbeque, or store portions in your Tupperware boxes for a grab-and-go lunch. This salad will store in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Main photograph: FOODISM360 on Unsplash