Quinoa with grilled pumpkin and beetroot salad
In cooler months I tend to favour soups over salads, but this colourful grilled pumpkin salad is an exception. The roasted root vegetables with spices have that warming feeling and comfort so needed to get through the shorter days. I love having this salad warm, but it is also delicious as a cold dish. This recipe is a great vegetarian dish, but crumbling a little bit of feta or fresh goats cheese will add some tasty flavour.
Ingredients:
Serves 2
- 3 small beetroot, trimmed, scrubbed
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 250g pumpkin, peeled, cut into 3cm pieces
- ½ tbsp thyme leaves
- 150g quinoa
- 50g baby spinach leaves
- 1 orange, juiced
- ½ tbsp honey or maple syrup
- ½ tsp wholegrain mustard
- 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
- 25g walnuts, toasted & chopped
Method:
- Preheat oven to 200C.
- On a baking tray add the beetroot and pumpkin, season and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle thyme over the pumpkin.
- Bake for around 30 minutes or until softened.
- Once cool, peel the skin off the beetroot and chop into small pieces.
- Once the pumpkin is soft, heat a grill pan and grill the pumpkin for about one minute on either side so they have blackened griddle lines, remove and set aside.
- Cook the quinoa as per the instructions on the packet and leave to cool.
- Make the dressing by combining the maple syrup (or honey), mustard, orange juice and remaining olive oil (add more oil if required) and mix together.
- Peel and cut into small segments the beetroot and mix together with the pumpkin, quinoa, walnuts and parsley and drizzle over the dressing.