Simple Quinoa Salad

 I love avocado salads, but for a complete meal, I like to add quinoas to them. This nutritious salad, mixed with the high protein quinoa is simple and very easy to cook. You can very well go ahead and add any grilled chicken or boiled eggs to them and that will only make it taste better. But without any other additional protein element, this one is also great because of the crunchy spiced cashew nuts bits.

Quinoa Salad

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of raw quinoa

1 small onion - chopped

1 medium cucumber - chopped

Some cherry tomatoes - halved

Half of an avocado - cut into bit sized cubes

Juice of 1 lime

A handful of fresh coriander leaves - finely chopped

A handful of whole cashew nuts

1 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper

1/4 tsp cumin seeds

1 dry red chilli

1/4 tsp whole coriander seeds

A few whole black peppercorns

1 green cardamom

A pinch of turmeric powder

Method:

Wash the quinoa until clear water runs through.

Put that in a pressure cooker with twice the amount of water, and pressure cook on low flame until you have just one whistle. Let the pressure stabilise and then open the lid. 

In a skillet dry roast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, green cardamom and black peppercorns.

Once they become aromatic transfer them to a mortar and pestle and pound them into powder.

In the same skillet dry roast the cashew nuts for a minute, stirring often.

In the end, add a little olive oil to them, and sprinkle the turmeric powder, salt and the prepared spice mix in preferred quantity.

Keep them aside.

In a large bowl, put together the cooked quinoa, chopped onion, cucumber, avocado, cherry tomatoes, lime juice, chopped coriander leaves, rest of the olive oil, roasted and spiced cashew nuts.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Give a gentle mix.

Serve immediately.