Citrus-Pomegranate Quinoa Salad

First of all, we have some super, super exciting news. After nearly a year of planning, planning, testing, cooking, writing, photographing, agonizing, organizing, not sleeping, and stressing, we are officially done with the manuscript for our second book! There’s lots and lots of work ahead for us, but this is such a huge, monumental milestone and we’re so grateful to all of you who have stuck with us, been patient through weeks of sweet treats (because we were busy writing actual dinner recipes for the book), and have given us hope that someone will buy the next book. We love you guys and can’t ever thank you enough for being the best blog readers ever.

In the last year or so, I’ve kind of been having a love affair with quinoa. It’s so versatile and delicious and healthy. It’s quicker-cooking than brown rice, but you can use it in so many of the same ways that we’ve started using it quite a bit instead of rice.

One of my favorite ways to eat quinoa is in salads (like this one or this one). I love this particular salad because it has pomegranate arils, which I love, but I can only eat in small quantities because the juice hurts my teeth (yes, I’m 90 years old) and smooth, creamy bites of avocado. You’ll need cooked quinoa, seeds from 1 pomegranate, about 1/2 of a red onion, 1/2 of a cucumber, 1-2 avocados, a can of drained and rinsed garbanzo or great northern beans, about 1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley, and kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. For the dressing, you’ll need juice from an orange, lemon, and lime, a clove of garlic, a little bit of pure olive oil (extra-virgin is a little too strong here, at least for my taste), a bit of sugar or other sweetener, and a little more kosher salt.

Place the beans, peeled/seeded/diced cucumber, minced red onion, cilantro or parsley, and pomegranate arils in a large bowl…

and toss with your hands until combined.

Add the chilled quinoa and toss to combine. To make the dressing, whisk together some freshly squeezed orange juice, lemon juice, lime juice, 2-3 teaspoons of sugar (or honey, agave, or Splenda if you prefer), 2 tablespoons oil, and about 1/2 heaping teaspoon of kosher salt. Drizzle it over the salad and chill until ready to serve. When you’re ready to serve, add 1-2 diced avocados (depending on the size of and love for avocados) and serve. This can either be a light meal or served as a side dish.