While breakfast is usually liquid form for me and dinner is out the window when it comes to true healthiness, I do like to try to have something on the healthier side for lunch during the week. I usually turn to salads but have found I need something with more protein to get me through the 3:00 munchies. I’m really not a fan of meats in my salads (or tuna, thank you overfishing education in Fisheries class, thanks alot) so the quinoa and chickpeas in this recipe from The Garden Grazer are way more appealing to me.
The only modifications I made were doubling the dressing (I always prefer more dressing/sauce than recipes call for), using cherry tomatoes instead of chopped romas, chives instead of green onions, and adding a little more quinoa and corn to finish off what I had. Chopped tomatoes always make salad dishes too liquid-y in my opinion so I have started using cherry tomatoes instead and hopefully in a few months I’ll have a steady supply of super sweet homegrown ones to use.
I love how much more zing the extra lemon juice gives the quinoa and how it contrasts with the sweet corn and orange pepper. Even the husband liked this, after asking about “queen-o” a million times as that Bud Light commercial taught him.
There’s a ton of play with this recipe but all I would do is use fresh basil next time and as one of her commenters suggested, add feta cheese (hells yeah), but otherwise the dish was awesome to me. I’m actually excited to dig into it in a couple hours.
And speaking of salads, the Garden Grazer’s Southwestern Chopped Salad is the bomb too!
