Lunchtime Recipe

Baked Sweet Potato & Quinoa Salad

My lunch often consists of baking sweet potatoes in the microwave. I cannot get enough of those things! 

Quinoa Salad Ingredients:

1/4 cup quinoa (I used Ancient Harvest)

1 can chickpeas (I try to find some without added sodium)

3 cups broccoli and cauliflower mixed together

3 cups brussel sprouts

1/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese (per serving)

Recipe:

1. Take the broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts and steam them in a large pan on the stove with water. Or, you could steam them in microwave safe tupperware also using water for about 10 minutes.

2. Once the brussel sprouts are a bit soft you have to cut the ends off them individually, and i also recommend cutting the individual sprouts into smaller, more bite-sized pieces.

3. While preparing the vegetables the quinoa and chickpeas are prepared together. First the quinoa must be cooked on the stovetop. The instructions on the box say to use a quarter part water for each part quinoa, but I found that using enough water to just cover the quinoa in the pan worked well. The water needs to boil and the quinoa needs to cook for about 10 - 15 minutes after that, or until it has softened. 

4. The chickpeas should be strained and rinsed before combining with quinoa. I combine once the quinoa is essentially done cooking, so that the chickpeas can just be warmed up. This takes about 5 minutes, once everything is warm strain the water from the pan.

5. Combine the vegetables with the quinoa and chickpea mixture and toss it together, mixing well. 

I usually get about 4 or 5 servings from one recipe, and I top the each individual mixture with some part-skim mozzarella and pepper. The sweet potato has the ends cut off and a small slice made down the middle and is then cooked in the microwave for about 9 minutes.


The caloric information for this is about 200 - 250 calories per serving of the salad, if you include the cheese, and 100 calories for the potato.