Vegan Thai Quinoa Salad

This Vegan Thai Quinoa Salad is filled with tons of crunch, texture, and tossed together with a delicious homemade Sesame Dressing. It’s an easy plant based recipe that is super colorful!

Why I love it:

• Colorful: All of the veggies give this salad all of the colors of the rainbow.
• Texture: Crisp veggies, crunchy cashews, and tender edamame give the salad lots of different textures.
• Plant-Based: This plant-based quinoa salad lets you load up on veggies while still filling up.
• Customizable: Don’t like a certain ingredient… leave it out! Super fan of another ingredient… Add more!

Ingredients for this Thai Quinoa Salad:

• Cooked Quinoa
• Edamame – Use shelled edamame. You can find this in the freezer aisle.
• Shredded Red Cabbage – you can buy it pre-shredded, or use a sharp knife to very thinly slice.
• Shredded Carrots
• Bell Pepper – thinly sliced
• Fresh Cilantro
• Green Onions
• Cashews
• Homemade Sesame Dressing – olive oil, garlic powder, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, honey or maple syrup, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil, ground ginger, lime juice

How to Make a Homemade Sesame Dressing

My favorite way to make salad dressings/vinaigrettes is to shake them up in a mason jar. This makes it so easy to combine the ingredients together and it makes storage easy.

Serving Suggestions:

• I have a Thai Kale Salad on the blog and the Roasted Shrimp its paired with would be AWESOME on the side of this Quinoa Salad. You can find the recipe here.
• Grilled Chicken
• Baked Tofu to keep it vegan. Gimme Some Oven has a great recipe!

What can I add to quinoa for flavor?

If you want to boost the flavor of cooked quinoa, here are a few things you can add:

• Cook in broth instead of water
• Add Spices When Cooking – Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, and dried spices are great to add to the dry quinoa and liquid when cooking.

Does quinoa need to be rinsed?

Quinoa does need to be rinsed before cooking. Or you can buy quinoa at the store that is labeled as ‘pre-rinsed’ on the bag. If the quinoa isn’t pre-rinsed, you need to rinse it to remove the saponins which can give the quinoa a bitter taste.

Leftovers and Storage

Leftover quinoa salad can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge. If the salad has been tossed with the dressing, it will stay fresh for up to 3 days, but will lose some of its crunch. If you wait to dress the salad, then it will last a little bit longer.

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