Asian Quinoa Salad with Thai Peanut Dressing

*Casie Here*

I made this salad the other night for dinner and man my kids loved it. They each had two full bowls. It is similar to my other Asian Salad HERE, but a little different. I got my inspiration from Pinterest. A lot of times I just search 'Vegan Meals' or just 'Vegan' or 'Vegetarian'. I have a lot of yummy ones saved to my 'Vegetarian/Vegan Dishes' board.

  HERE is the original recipe I went off of and I will tell you what all I did different (which isn't too much).

Crunchy Cashew Thai Quinoa Salad with Ginger Peanut Dressing {vegan, gluten-free} 

Prep time 10 mins

Cook time 15 mins

Total time 25 mins

Author: Monique of AmbitiousKitchen.com

Recipe type: Healthy, Salad, Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten-free

Cuisine: Asian, Thai

Ingredients

• ¾ cup uncooked quinoa
• 1-2 cups shredded red cabbage, depending on how much crunch you like
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• ½ red onion, diced
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• ½ cup chopped cilantro
• ¼ cup diced green onions
• ½ cup cashew halves or peanuts (honey-roasted is good)
• Optional: 1 cup edamame or chickpeas
• Fresh lime, for a bit of tang
• For the dressing:
• ¼ cup all natural peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
• 3 tablespoon soy sauce, gluten-free if desired
• 1 tablespoon honey (use agave if vegan)
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• Water to thin, if necessary

Instructions

1. To cook quinoa: Rinse quinoa with cold water in mesh strainer. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 ½ cups of water to a boil. Add in quinoa and bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all of the water. Remove from heat and fluff quinoa with fork; place in large bowl and set aside to cool for about 10 minutes. You should have a little over 2 cups of quinoa.
2. To make dressing: Add peanut butter and honey or agave to a medium microwave safe bowl; heat in microwave for 20 seconds. Add in ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, and both sesame and olive oil and stir until mixture is smooth and creamy. If you want a thinner dressing, simply stir in a teaspoon or two of water or olive oil.
3. Add as much or as little dressing as you’d like to the quinoa. I always start out with a little bit of dressing and usually add more to suit my taste preferences. Alternatively you can save the dressing for later and add when you are ready to eat; however the flavors of the dressing usually soak into the salad so I love adding it to the quinoa first.
4. Next fold in red pepper, onion, cabbage, carrots, and cilantro into the quinoa. Garnish with cashews and green onions. Serve chilled or at room temperature with lime wedges if desired.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: 1/6th of recipe Calories: 260 Fat: 13.5g Carbohydrates: 27.7g Sugar: 7g Fiber: 4.3g Protein: 8.6g

My Version and changes:

So, I cooked 1 cup of plain Quinoa (instead of 3/4 cup)  that I had rinsed really good and added to 1 cup of boiling water (not 1 1/2 cups). It has a lot of dust and debris on it, so make sure to rinse it in a mesh strainer before you put it in the boiling water. 

I chopped up 1/2 a head of purple cabbage. It was a small head. Not sure how much it made when I chopped it all up, but it was a good amount. I prefer pieces smaller.

1 used 1/4 of a red, yellow and orange pepper, diced small.

I diced one small yellow onion.

I shredded 2 medium carrots with the handheld box grader cause I didn't want to pull out the food processor. Either would be fine. Just shred into however small or big you want your carrot pieces. 

I ripped a handful of cilantro off the bunch. Probably came out more to 3/4 cup of chopped cilantro. 

And I chopped about 5 stalks of green onions (was more like 1/2 cup).

*TIP* At Sams I buy the big container of  Cashews and go home and put them in the food processor and chop them all up and put them back in the container with a measuring cup in the bucket and put it in the freezer. When I need Cashews for a recipe or to throw into anything, I just grab it from the freezer and scoop out however much I need and throw it back in. It is so easy and fast. 

I probably would have put in Edamame and Chic peas if we would have had some, but we were out of both.

The dressing I pretty much kept the same except I used RICE wine vinegar instead of red wine vinegar.

And we have a container of Ginger-Garlic Paste in the fridge that I use for Asian dressings and such. I used about a tablespoon of that in it instead of the grated ginger.

I did add about 2-3 Tablespoons of HEMP SEEDS to the salad for more protein, but that is the only thing extra I threw in (this time ; ).

 When I served it, the salad was a little warm from the warm Quinoa and the Peanut Dressing was warm from being microwaved. It was so freaking delicious, the kids were CHOWIN' down. I think I prefer this version better than my other Asian salad.