Name: Easy Quinoa & Butternut Salad #GetWellMichele
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Ingredients: 1 cup Village Harvest Red Quinoa (prepared according to package directions); 1 heaping cup spinach (cut into ribbons); 1 heaping cup roasted butternut squash; 1 cup feta cheese (crumbled); 1/2 cup pine nuts (toasted)

This easy quinoa & butternut squash salad is a beautiful and delicious recipe that’s packed with nutrition. Eat for lunch or as a side dish or take along to your next party! #GetWellMichele

Today I have another quinoa recipe for you. If you haven’t tried quinoa yet, you should. It’s such a versatile grain and it super easy to make. Just 2 dry cups of this red quinoa was enough to double this recipe, freeze a serving and yet have enough for another meal. I found this easy quinoa & butternut squash salad on my friend Michelle’s website, A Dish of Daily Life.

Recently a blogging friend Christie reached out to me to help Michelle who is having a surgery and would be out of commission for a while. Michelle is a wonderfully generous person who was kind enough to help me along when I was starting off in the blogging world. To give a little back to her, myself and some other bloggers are making recipes from Michelle’s blog to help keep up her blog traffic while she recuperates. She has wonderful recipes so this was no hardship let me tell you. I personally love her Middle Eastern recipes but today I made this delicious and healthy quinoa salad because you all know I’ve been on a major quinoa kick and it looked so pretty. You can find the original recipe here.

To make this lovely bowl of goodness, you simply use cooked quinoa, roasted butternut squash, baby spinach, feta cheese and pine nuts. I have a thing for cheese and pine nuts … they make everything taste better. Toss all the ingredients in a bright, citrus vinaigrette and you are ready to go. The dressing recipe makes a lot so you probably won’t need it all or you can do like I did and double everything else. This salad will go fast in my house, I am sure!

Easy Quinoa & Butternut Squash Salad

Well I hope you enjoy another tasty quinoa recipe. For more of Michelle’s wonderful recipes, check out what my blogging friends have for you below.

Easy Quinoa & Butternut Salad #GetWellMichele

This easy quinoa & butternut squash salad is a beautiful and delicious recipe that's packed with nutrition. Original recipe is from A Dish of Daily Life and can be found here.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Servings 4 -6

Author Denise Wright (MyLifeCookbook.com)

Ingredients

1 cup Village Harvest Red Quinoa prepared according to package directions
1 heaping cup spinach cut into ribbons
1 heaping cup roasted butternut squash
1 cup feta cheese crumbled
½ cup pine nuts toasted

Instructions

Salad
Prepare red quinoa according to package directions.
Peel and cube a small butternut squash, toss with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and roast for about a half hour until fork tender, at 450 degrees. (I did have extra butternut squash cubes, which I saved to use in another dish)
Cut spinach into ribbons.
Toast pine nuts.
Wait for quinoa and butternut squash to cool before assembling the salad.
Mix together quinoa, butternut squash, spinach, feta and pine nuts.
Toss with orange vinaigrette. Add slowly...you may have extra depending on how light or heavy you like your salad dressed.
Orange Vinaigrette
Whisk together the orange zest, honey, dijon mustard, salt.
Add the orange juice and whisk together again.
Continue to whisk, and add the olive oil slowly.