Roasted Quinoa Salad by Klaar Mellen

Every couple of weeks, despite some occasional protest from my kids, this salad is on our menu. Nutritious, not expensive, super tasty and easy to make. What more can we ask for?

In winter I eat it warm with a peanut or curry sauce, chicken, eggs or any other type of protein. In summer I use it as a side salad for a barbeque.

Ingredients

* 250 gram cooked Quinoa 
* 1 glass container of chickpeas
* 1 big red or white onion
* 2 carrots
* 1/2 butternut
* 1 tsp of cumin
* 1 tsp of garlic powder
* 1 tsp of smoked pepper
* 1 tsp of chili flakes if you like some spiciness
* 3 tablespoons of mixed seeds
* a handful of roasted cashew nuts
* a handful of sliced spring onion

Instructions

Rinse your quinoa first with water,then boil it with a little bit of chicken or vegetable stock and set aside.

Preheat your oven to 190 degrees.

Clean your carrots and cut them in slices of 2 centimeters and throw them in an ovendish.

Rinse the chickpeas and throw them together with the carrots.

Peel your onion and cut in slices of 2 centimeters and add them to the rest of the veggies. Be careful you don’t cut the onions too small as they burn easily in the oven.

Last but not least, cut your butternut in small cubes of around 2 centimeters and mingle them with the rest of the vegetables.

Drizzle some avocado oil over the veggies together with all the spices and hustle well so all the veggies are covert in a mixture of oil and delicious spices. Season well with pepper and salt.

Put your veggies in the oven and hustle them every 10 minutes. Leave them in the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes (make sure the onion is not burning).

In the meantime take a small pan and add a little bit of olive oil and bake the mixture of seeds until they are crispy and browned. Season the seeds with some salt and pepper and set aside.

Take your veggies out of the oven and mix them well with your cooked quinoa and pour the mixture in a bowl. Finish off with some roasted cashew nut, the crispy, salted seeds and a handful of sliced spring onion. Drizzle some extra virgin oil on top of it for some omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

You will see. This dish is easy to make, it's super tasty, has a lot of fiber and is super versatile. Moreover you can make this dish with lots of other vegetables you have lying in your fridge. 

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!