This refreshing and exciting salad consists of quinoa, apples, celery, red onions, golden raisins, cilantro, mint, lime, garam masala, curry powder, cashews, kale. It’s like confetti. It’s colorful, packed with flavor and full of surprises.
Being in online culinary school you have the opportunity to try all kinds of recipes and do some recipe development practice. One of the biggest highlights has been learning about the different flavor components of dishes. It’s defining a base recipe/flavor first and then allowing the rest of the recipe development to follow naturally. It’s been eye-opening as far as how recipe development works.
We made this salad for our program and it was so good. I loved it so much I had to adapt it for my own recipe library. I think you’re going to love it.
How do you make this beautiful salad?
These ingredients are the mise en place for the salad. Don’t let the number of ingredients intimidate you. It’s easier than you think. Focus on different components at a time. Salad includes kale, quinoa, cashews, fresh limes, golden raisins, cilantro, mint, celery, red onions, grapeseed oil, curry powder, garam masala, Fuji apples, kosher salt, and ground pepper.
One of the first steps is to prepare your ingredients. Wash and prepare all produce. Wash kale and tear it into pieces. Dice the celery and red onion. Chop the cilantro and mint. Juice the fresh lime. Reserve dicing the Fuji apple for the end to prevent it from browning.
Roasting the Cashews
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a small bowl, add cashews, grapeseed oil, and curry powder. Toss to coat the cashews. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Place into oven and lightly roast for 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven. Set aside and allow to cool.
Your kitchen will start to have that wonderful aroma of an Indian kitchen due to the curry powder. Smells so good.
Sweating the Kale
To add more texture to this salad, tear the kale off the stems. Reserve the stems for juicing if desired. Sweating is a cooking technique that helps extract flavors from the ingredient and adds more texture to a dish. Wilting the kale just slightly is good and it still maintains its color.
Assembling the Salad
To assemble this gorgeous and refreshing salad do the following in a large shallow bowl:
- Add quinoa and toss with the kale.
- Add the celery, red onion, lime juice, cilantro, mint, garam masala, a pinch of kosher salt, and ground pepper.
- Toss to coat. Add more seasoning if more is desired. Serve immediately. Top with more toasted cashews for more crunch.
This is a great salad to bring to a potluck. Everyone will want to come back for seconds. It’s easy peasy!
Confetti Quinoa Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 3/4 cups vegetable stock
- kosher salt, to taste
- 1/2 cup raw cashews
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- 1 1/2 tsp grapeseed oil
- 1 bunch kale, washed and torn into pieces
- 3 celery stalks, diced
- 1/2 red onion, diced
- 1 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh mint, roughly chopped
- Fresh lime juice
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 1 Fuji apple, diced
- 1/2 cup golden raisins
- kosher salt and ground pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees. Wash and prepare all produce. Wash kale and tear into pieces. Dice the celery and red onion. Chop the cilantro and mint. Juice the fresh lime. Reserve dicing the Fuji apple for the end to prevent it from browning. Set aside.
- In a small stockpot, bring vegetable stock, quinoa and kosher salt to a boil. Reduce to simmer and cover with lid. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Set aside. Keep covered and let rest for additional 10 minutes. Uncover and fluff quinoa with a fork. Set aside again to cool.
- In a small bowl, combine the cashews, curry powder, grapeseed oil and pinch of kosher salt. Toss until nuts are fully coated in curry powder. Transfer nuts to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spread out evenly. Place into oven. Lightly roast at 300 degrees for about 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven. Set aside.
- Gather the remaining ingredients. In a small skillet, heat over medium heat. Once hot, add grapeseed oil, kale and a pinch of kosher salt. Sweat kale for 2-3 minutes or until leaves are slightly wilted. Remove from heat. Dice the Fuji apple.
- To assemble the salad, in a large bowl add the quinoa and toss with the kale. Next, add the celery, red onion, lime juice, cilantro, mint, garam masala, pinch of kosher salt and ground pepper. Toss to coat. Add more seasoning if more is desired.
- Serve immediately. Top with more cashews to add more crunch.
Thanks Leisha! Hope you enjoy it. 🙂