Friday, August 3, 2012

Quinoa Salad with Red Beans, Zucchini, and Yellow Bell Pepper

quinoa salad with red beans, zucchini, and yellow bell pepper

I'm tweaking these recipes as I convert them from pasta to quinoa, the pasta version of this had corn instead of yellow bell pepper. Which was clever because you could cook the corn at the last minute with the pasta, there's no way I'm going to dirty another pot just for some corn. I guess I could stir the corn into the quinoa about halfway through? Eh. I like the yellow bell pepper! It's crunchy and fresh.

Oh I guess I put peas with zucchini, and corn with summer squash. Why would I have done that, obviously you want yellow with the green and green with the yellow. For the contrast. What. Well, I fixed it.

Remember you can double the marinated beans and set half of them aside for green salads later!

3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
one can red beans
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
2-3 zucchini
1 yellow bell pepper

Measure vinegar into a large bowl and add a generous amount of salt and pepper, and a little bit of minced aromatics like onion or shallot or garlic if desired. Drizzle the olive oil over the vinegar and whisk it in. Rinse and drain the red beans and marinate them in the vinaigrette.

Trim and dice the zucchini and pepper. If you made a double recipe of red beans, put away about two cups for green salads. Toss the zucchini and pepper with the rest of the red beans and vinaigrette.

Put the quinoa and water in a pan over high heat. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for fifteen minutes. Remove from heat, fluff it up a bit, and add it to the marinated beans and vegetables.

Very good slightly warm, also good cold from the refrigerator with a little bit of sriracha or salsa to wake the flavors up.