Curry Quinoa Salad

We love this curry quinoa salad in this house. In fact, as soon as mangoes start appearing in stores, the kids start to ask me to make this salad. We eat this salad as a meal instead of as a side to another meal. It’s a perfect meal on its own. You can replace the salad leaves with some arugula, or with field greens, or even kale. The options are limitless.

This is such a delicious salad and the curry dressing can be used for so many other things. I love salad dressing recipes like these that have multiple uses.

The Ingredients for Curry Quinoa Salad

Some cooked, some raw, but all ingredients together form an amazing curry quinoa salad.

Ingredients List for Curry Quinoa Salad:

• 2 cups cooked quinoa
• 1 cup cooked chickpeas
• 2 large mangoes
• 2 shallots
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 1 red chili
• 2 green onions
• 1/2 cup toasted almonds
• fresh coriander leaves for garnish
  For the curry dressing
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 3 tablespoons curry powder
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

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The Curry Dressing

Firstly, let’s make the curry dressing. Making the dressing is so simple. It’s just a matter of combining all the ingredients and voila! We have a delicious creamy curry dressing.

Let’s start by:

• Finely chopping two garlic cloves to an almost pasty form. If you don’t like raw garlic, by all means, skip the raw garlic and replace it with 1/2 teaspoon of garlic granules.
• Then add 1/4 cup of greek yogurt to a mixing bowl and whip it for about a minute. This is just to ensure that there are no lumps in the dressing.
• Next, we can add:
  • 3 tablespoons curry powder
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
• Once everything is in the bowl, mix everything together to form a delicious creamy curry dressing. I certainly love the yellow color of the dressing.

The Quinoa and Chickpeas

Now we can move on to the rest of the salad. The quinoa and chickpeas need to be cooled entirely before we can make the salad. I generally cook the quinoa and chickpeas in the morning and use them for dinner or at least 2-3 hours before I use them. You can also cook them in advance and let them sit in the fridge overnight too. And of course, you can use canned chickpeas as well if you prefer.

Making The Curry Quinoa Salad

Let’s work on the rest of the salad – the fruit, herbs, and putting it together:

• Firstly, let’s start with peeling and dicing two large mangoes. I like to dice the mango into 1 cm pieces, basically, so, it gets mixed well into the salad.
• Finely chop two shallots, one red chili, and two green onions as well. Now we can build the curry quinoa salad.

• Add all the salad ingredients to a large mixing bowl.
• Hold back one cup of baby spinach and fresh coriander leaves.
• Mix all the ingredients so that they are well combined.
• Thereafter, you can add the curry dressing to the bowl. Once again, mix everything well, so that the curry dressing covers everything in the bowl.
• When you add the curry dressing, your curry quinoa salad will take on a yellowish tinge. The color from curry powder will tinge everything yellowish.

• Once everything is mixed, you can add the spinach to the bowl. Mix the spinach in, but do not over mix. You do not want the spinach leaves breaking and ripping apart.

Serving Suggestions:

Finally, we are ready to enjoy our curry quinoa salad. To serve, sprinkle the curry quinoa salad with fresh-cut coriander leaves and half a cup of toasted chopped almonds. Enjoy it as a meal all on its own. I like to add some crunchy onions or crunchy jalapeños on top too. They, coupled with the almonds add a great texture to the salad. Try serving the salad with my:

• Oven-Grilled Chicken Thighs or
• Honey Mustard Chicken Thighs

Storing Suggestions for the Curry Quinoa Salad:

Although this salad is best consumed fresh, it can be saved in the fridge in an air tight container for ONE day. The fresh mango and spinach are best not saved for over one day.

Tried and Liked the Recipe?

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