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This recipe for Bacon Quinoa Salad with Lemon Dijon Dressing is a fresh, colorful salad that’s great with grilled meats or on its own as a meal.
As you may already know, I am unable to blog full time while doing physical therapy for my arthritis, but I am SO lucky to have an incredible blogger friend stopping by to do a guest post to help me out! So please give a warm welcome to Rachel from Savoring Simple.
She of my very favorite new food bloggers. It would mean a lot to me if you would head on over to her blog and also show her some support on her social media as well. Like me, she makes everything from scratch and takes gorgeous pictures! Thanks so much for posting Rachel!! And thank you for the recipe! I am trying it this week!
Hi there! I can’t tell you how excited I was when Erren asked me to guest post on her blog. She’s an amazing food blogger that I have looked up to for a while now, so this is a huge honor for me!
Today’s recipe is one my husband, Sam, and I, have been eating a lot of lately. It’s the kind of recipe that has enough veggies to be healthy, but enough flavor and bacon to forget it’s really a salad. (#Winning!) This Spring Quinoa Salad has it all: the crispy, smokey saltiness of bacon, the tang of Lemon Dijon Dressing, the refreshing, bitter bite of kale, the nutty crunch of sunflower seeds, and the wholesome quinoa that makes me forget all the pizza I’ve eaten, ever, because healthy tastes so good.
I’m hungry all over again.
This salad has been our go-to meal lately as we renovate our (eee!) first-ever house. As much as we have loved the apartment life, it’s time to part ways with the noisy upstairs neighbors and shared garbage cans, and venture into the world of mowing our own lawn and shoveling our own snow and walking outside to get our mail, instead of finding it in a convenient little box downstairs on my way to the heated garage where I get my car every morning. No trepidation here about losing that heated garage, by the way….
So since most of my time has been equally split between sanding cabinet doors and trying to get all of the spackle and paint out of my hair, almost none has been spent in the kitchen. Enter an easy, spring-y, pull-out-of-the-fridge-and-toss-together salad that takes almost no advanced planning (except for the bacon!).
It’s also one of those super forgiving recipes: you know, the kind of recipe that can be adapted for those times you forget to make the bacon or run out of sunflower seeds or sub a peach for the mango and want to throw a handful of raisins in to trick yourself into thinking you’re not eating the exact same dinner 8 days in a row. You know the kind, yes? This salad loves a good substitution, so feel free to have some fun with it!
I have only one word of warning regarding this recipe: don’t put the Lemon Dijon Dressing on too soon-wait until serving or the salad will be too wet and lose that Spring-y crispness that makes it so magical and yummy. Enjoy!
Recipe
Bacon Quinoa Salad with Lemon Dijon Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa + 1 ¾ c. water
- 2-3 handfuls chopped baby kale
- 6-8 pieces strips of bacon (cooked and cut into)
- 1 inch mango (chopped into 1 pieces)
- 1 inch apple (chopped into 1 pieces)
- ⅓ cup chopped cilantro
- ½ cup sunflower seeds
- ½ cup Crumbled Queso fresco or feta cheese (or more)
- For the dressing recipe (please visit Savoring Simple)
For the dressing
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- herbs of your choice (to taste)
- Salt and pepper ( to taste)
Instructions
- Cook the quinoa according to package directions.
- When the quinoa is done cooking, fluff it with a fork and set it aside to cool.
- Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing. Keep the salad and the dressing separate until ready to serve.
- When you are ready to serve, toss the cooled quinoa with the rest of the salad ingredients in a large bowl and slowly add in the dressing, adding more or less depending on taste. Serve the salad with extra cheese and the remaining salad dressing.
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