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Looking for a way to freshen up your diet?

What better way to welcome spring than this delicious and healthy medley of fresh ingredients!

Coming out of the winter season, we can easily feel groggy, clouded, and lack the motivation needed to get back into the swing of things. Especially after the past year, the weight of everything seems even heavier, making it more difficult to find new ways to take care of ourselves. Doing your best to stay healthy is an effective way to elevate your mood, but it may not always be easy! That being said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t easy and beneficial options out there. For example, this easy and quick salad is filled with fresh and flavorful ingredients like cucumber, chickpeas, pepper, onion, and parsley all mixed into a bed of hearty quinoa. It is the perfect way to bring energy, nutrients, and everything your body needs to be healthy with minimal effort! This is a vegan, gluten-free meal that is sure to make anyone’s day brighter, and here’s how you can make it yourself!

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This recipe only takes 40 minutes in total (approximately 20 minutes of prep time and 20 minutes of cook time) and yields 8 servings, so you can make enough to feed an entire family or meal prep for the week, making your daily routine all that much easier! 

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed 
• 2 cups water
• 1 can (15 ounces) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 medium cucumber, seeded and chopped
• 1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
• ¾ cup chopped red onion 
• 1 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley 
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup lemon juice 
• 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Quinoa

1. Combine the rinsed quinoa and the water in a medium saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then decrease the heat to simmer. Cook until the quinoa has absorbed all of the water (about 15 minutes). Remove from heat, cover, and let the quinoa rest for 5 minutes, to give it time to fluff up.

Salad

1. In a large serving bowl, combine the chickpeas, cucumber, bell pepper, onion and parsley. Set aside.
2. In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, garlic and salt. Whisk until blended, then set aside.
3. Once the quinoa is mostly cool, add it to the serving bowl, and drizzle the dressing on top. Toss until the mixture is thoroughly combined. Season with black pepper, to taste, and add an extra pinch of salt if necessary. For best flavor, let the salad rest for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.
4. This salad keeps well in the refrigerator, covered, for about 4 days. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

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Make this recipe even easier with Mealfit’s pre-cooked quinoa!

Mealfit’s goal is to make healthy eating easier for everyone, which means we strive to serve quality ingredients and meals that are designed to reduce how much time it takes for people to prepare meals! To accomplish this, we introduced our Meals by the Pound options to make meal prepping easier on our customers. One of our favorite options is our delicious quinoa! It’s the perfect food to pair with lunch to make it more filling without adding unnecessary calories or as the perfect healthy afternoon snack. We’ve taken special care to make our quinoa, 

“seasoned perfectly, much like our famous rice with our Mealfit Seasoning.” 

You can order our pre-cooked quinoa, here, to cut cook time for this recipe in half! Only 20 minutes (maximum) to make an irresistible and healthy quinoa salad? Yes, please! Feel free to check out our other meal options as well and let Mealfit make eating easier for you!

We hope you enjoy this Fresh and Healthy Mediterranean Quinoa Salad Recipe. If you tried any of the things we provided, make sure to let us know! For more recipes and tips, follow us on social media and make sure to check out our weekly blog posts where we share our new favorite recipes and must-know facts about food and living a healthy lifestyle! Check out the other meal options Mealfit provides such as our Weekly Specials, Individual Meals, and other Meals by the Pound.