This Carrot Coriander Quinoa Salad is inspired from Tabbouleh, the Middle Eastern salad made using couscous and a lot of fresh herbs. One serving of this salad is just 100 calories.
If you follow me on Instagram, I’m on a major MyFitnessPal and watching-what-I-eat spree. This means plenty of low cal but high flavour and nutritious meals. I’m logging all my new recipes on the app and it’s really an eye opener. We tend to vastly underestimate how much we eat. A food-diary (and an honest one at that) is one of the first steps towards getting healthy or losing weight.
The skinny zoodle salad was one such creation – low cal and superbly filling. Salads in restaurants can be as rich in calories as main course. In order to make it appetising and attractive, it is doused in dressing. No matter how good the olive oil is for us, if you are watching what you eat, an excess of olive oil in a salad is not going to add up favourably. When I make salads at home, I make sure I use just 1 tsp oil for one serving of salad. I toss the salad in this oil and then whisk together the remaining ingredients. This mix is then poured over the salad and given a toss. Not the ideal way of making a dressing the French or Italians will approve, but hey my weighing scales approve of this method.
More Carrot Salad Recipes
Persimmon Salad with Carrot, Apple and Kale
Chickpea, Carrot, Cranberry Salad
About this Carrot Coriander Quinoa salad
Using a mix of grated carrot and plenty of fresh coriander tossed along with cooked quinoa and seasoned simply with lemon juice, salt and pepper, this salad brings a bowl of freshness to a summer table. The vibrant colours of carrot and coriander offset each other and quinoa adds a heft to the salad, making it more filling.
This carrot coriander quinoa salad is also eminently adaptable using whatever you have in your refrigerator and pantry. Substitute quinoa with couscous / broken wheat / brown rice or cooked millet and coriander with any other herb like basil or parsley and you have whole new salad.
Watch this video to learn how to cook quinoa just right.
COOKING TIP: Wash and scrub quinoa well with fingertips. Soak for one hour. Discard the soaked water and cook in fresh water to avoid any trace of bitterness in cooked quinoa.
| Prep Time | 5 minutes |
| Cook Time | 15 minutes |
| Passive Time | 1 hour |
| Servings |
servings
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- 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
- 1 cup grated carrot
- 1/4 cup finely chopped coriander
- 1 lemon
- 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil or use melted coconut oil
- 1/4 tsp salt
- black pepper freshly cracked, to taste
Ingredients
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- To prepare the Carrot Coriander Quinoa Salad, make sure the quinoa is cooked just right. The cooked grains should be separate and not soggy. Cool the grains after cooking before adding to salad.
- In a bowl, mix together the grated carrot, chopped coriander, cooked quinoa, oil and lemon juice, until well combined.
- Season with salt and pepper and toss well. While you can serve this salad immediately, refrigerating for 1 hour before serving brings out the flavours better.
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Do you think cooked brown rice will work too
Sure it will! Any other cooked grain like millet, couscous, broken wheat, red rice – all good 🙂