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My kids love going to Costco and New Seasons, our local whole foods store.  Do you know why?  It’s not for the prices and it’s certainly not for the selection.  Yup, you might have guessed it, it’s for the food tasting stations.  My three year old, Mei, reminds me every time that they have stuff for you to try.  Well, on one occasion, we tried a quinoa black bean salad.  After trying a few other versions and tweaking them, here’s my version of Quinoa Black Bean Salad.

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 cups water
3 Tbsp lime juice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ cup dried black beans, soaked and cooked or 1 15-oz can black beans drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn, defrosted or 1 cup of fresh corn lightly cooked
4 medium tomatoes, seeded and cut into chunks (save seed content for juicing or smoothies)
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped (Optional)
¼ cup Italian parsley
3 Tbsp olive oil
¼ cup diced red onion: (Optional)

Instructions:

1. Put rinsed quinoa, water and salt into pot and bring it to a boil. Cover and simmer until quinoa absorbs all the water, about 12-15 minutes. Then remove from heat, covered and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  Transfer quinoa to a big bowl and let it cool.
2. While the quinoa is cooling, put chopped onion into lime juice and set aside if you’re planning to add onion. If skipping onion, leave the lime juice alone.
3. Mix together black beans, corn, tomatoes, jalapeno, parsley and oil into a big bowl.
4. When quinoa is cool, scoop into salad bowl with beans. Add cumin. At this point, add onion with lime juice or simply add lime juice if skipping onion. Mix well.
5. Add more sea salt and lime juice to taste.
6. Serve straight from the fridge or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Notes:

If your kids don’t eat spicy,  split quinoa salad into two batches before adding jalapeno and the same rule applies to onions as well. If you prefer, 2 Tbsp chopped green onion could be used instead of onion.

Recipe adapted from New Season’s deli quinoa black bean salad.

Do you have your favorite version of quinoa black bean salad or other quinoa recipes? Do share them in the comments section because I love to try more recipes.

For quinoa soup, read Easy Peruvian Quinoa Chowder. New to quinoa? Check out my post How to Cook Quinoa.