This Easy Quinoa Salad with Feta is such a healthy option for lunch, meal prep, or for your next picnic! Packed with nutritious ingredients like high-protein quinoa, fresh vegetables, filling black beans and a lemon and apple cider vinegar dressing. It's simple and delicious!
This quinoa salad is perfect any time of year, for any meal, any occasion! It delivers major nutrition, it's simple to make and of course, it's suuuuper delicious.
Make it for lunch meal preps or for when you're having a picnic or potluck and need a really BIG salad to feed a whole whack of people.
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Love spring-forward salads? Me TOO.
Check these other gluten-free salads to make and bookmark them for later:
They're all so yummy!😋
📝 Ingredients for Quinoa Salad with Feta
- Quinoa - about 3 cups cooked
- Red pepper
- Celery
- Cucumber
- Cherry tomatoes
- Green onions
- Black beans
- Feta cheese - crumbed
- Olive oil
- 1 lemon
- Liquid honey
- Apple cider vinegar - you can use red wine vinegar if you don't have apple cider kind
- Salt and fresh ground pepper
See recipe card below for quantities and instructions.
🔪How to make quinoa salad
🍽️What to serve with quinoa salad
Honestly, this easy quinoa salad is perfect just on it's own (see below for why it's so freaking awesome).
But sometimes, especially if I'm using the salad as part of a meal prep, I'll add a protein of some sort.
Here are some protein-packed options for what pairs well with quinoa salad:
- 🍔Burgers baby! Check out: The BEST Cast Iron Skillet Burgers {EASY RECIPE} for a perfect paring with quinoa salad
- ✅ Grilled Chicken - my go-to recipe for chicken breasts in a meal prep (or for a weeknight dinner) is this simple recipe for Cast Iron Skillet Chicken Breast or this one for Easy Lemon Chicken Marinade Recipe
- 🥚Eggs - hard boil a couple eggs to go alongside this quinoa salad
- 🧀Halloumi cheese - the salty halloumi cheese is always a good idea to pair with a quinoa (or any) salad. Check out this recipe for Grilled Halloumi Salad with Tomato and Parsley
- 🍤Shrimp - here's a recipe for Easy Sweet and Spicy Shrimp that would be a delicious pairing
- 🥣Serve with Soup! Try this Instant Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup or this Chicken Tortilla Soup (no beans) for a great addition to an easy quinoa salad
💃Variations
One of the best things about quinoa salad is how many different vegetables and fruits go with quinoa.
There are so many healthy options - the yummy combinations feel endless! Check them out:
- Black bean mango
- Cranberry and feta cheese
- Kale and chickpea
- Kale and cranberry
- Kale with sweet potato
- Lemon chickpea
- Lentil and chickpea
- Lentil and sweet potato
- Mango anad avocado quinoa salad
- Tomato and cucumber
- Roasted sweet potato and pomegranate seeds
🙋♀️Is quinoa salad good for you?
Quinoa itself is a highly nutritious choice and quinoa provides a ton of nutrition. It's a great source of:
- Protein
- Fibre
- B vitamins - B6, B2, B1
- Folate
- Minerals - manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc
It's also economical, easy to cook, and you can make sooo many delicious dishes with it.
When you first go gluten-free, adding quinoa to your life opens up a ton of healthy possibilities.
Fun fact: quinoa itself is a seed. Not a grain as you might assume.
The quinoa plant belongs to the amaranth family - a naturally gluten-free option!
To keep quinoa salads healthy, go for a ton of veggies and oil-based instead of cream-based dressings. And if you love fruit and quinoa, check out this recipe for Summer Quinoa Salad with Mango🥭
⏲️Make ahead tips
Cook the quinoa
To save some time the day of, you can cook the quinoa 1 day before putting this salad together.
Follow the instructions on the container of quinoa you have at home or use my proportions and steps for cooking quinoa:
- Use 2 cups of water for every 1 ¼ cup dry quinoa
- Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low
- Cook with the lid on for about 15 minutes
- Remove from heat and fluff with a fork
- This makes approximately 3 cups of cooked quinoa
Cooking the quinoa in some broth - either chicken or vegetable broth (low sodium) - adds some extra flavour.
I like cooking the quinoa in gluten-free vegetable broth for this recipe.
Cooked quinoa will stay good in the fridge for up to 3 days.
You can also freeze cooked quinoa.
After cooking and cooling the quinoa, place in a ziplock bag or container with an air-tight lid. Freeze for up to 3 months.
Take out of the freezer the night before you want to use it so it can thaw in the fridge.
I don't recommend freezing this quinoa salad recipe though as the tomatoes don't do well with the freezing and thawing process.
Prep and chop the vegetables
You can wash and chop all the veggies the day before too.
Chop the celery, dice the cucumber and red pepper, and cut the cherry tomatoes in half.
Keep the prepped veggies covered in the fridge until you're ready to put the salad together.
Make the salad dressing
You can whisk up the salad dressing and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to use it too.
- If you're making this quinoa salad for meal prep, you can make the dressing the day before and keep it in the fridge.
- If you're making this quinoa salad to be eaten as part of a meal in one sitting (lunch, dinner, potluck, etc), you can whisk up the dressing up to 3 days before.
🥡Storage and Leftovers
This is a great salad to make for meal prep too because it keep for about 3 days in the fridge.
If you want to freshen it up a bit, squeeze some more lemon juice overtop on leftovers.
🏅Top tips:
- This quinoa salad recipe make a lot. That's why it's perfect to make for lunches for the week ahead or any meal prep.
- If you're making it to take to a potluck, get a big container or large bowl out with a lid and this salad travels well.
- See below in the comments because this quinoa salad can be a great way to use up some romaine lettuce, for example.
- If you have vegetables in the fridge or on the counter that need using up, you can probably throw them into this quinoa salad so they don't go to waste. Chopped red onion or kalamata olives you've had in the fridge for a while would be lovely.
If you do make this quinoa salad and love it, please rate and comment below.
I love to hear from you🙋♀️
~April
PS. Looking for more gluten-free, healthy recipes for supper? Check these out:
- Healthy Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup (no beans)
- Easy Winter Soup with Beans
- One Pan Chicken Breast with Zucchini and Peaches
- Spinach and Citrus Salad with Sweet and Spicy Almonds
- Easy Sweet and Spicy Shrimp
- Easy Spiced Chicken Salad with Brown Rice
- Healthy Taco Salad with Ground Beef and Kidney Beans
- Starbucks Chicken and Vegetables Protein Box Copycat
This post was originally published on November 8th, 2021. Updated copy and recipe tested and re-posted April 26th, 2023.
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📖 Recipe
Easy Quinoa Salad with Feta
Ingredients
- 3 cups quinoa, after cooking 1 ¼ cup before cooking (dry)
- 1 red pepper diced
- 3 stalks celery diced
- 2 medium cucumbers diced
- 1 240ml can of black beans rinsed and drained
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes diced
- 1 cup crumbled feta
Dressing
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ½ juice of lemon
- 2 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon Kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- 2 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced separate the green bottoms from the white tops
Instructions
- Cook the quinoa according to package instructions.
- While the quinoa cooks, put the chopped vegetables and drained black beans in a large bowl.
- Make the dressing by whisking together the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, honey, salt, pepper and the about ½ of the white tops of the scallions.
- Once the quinoa is cooked and slightly cooled, add to the large bowl of vegetables and black beans. stir to combine.
- Pour dressing over the combined ingredients and toss gently to combine. Add feta and combine.
- This is ready to eat right away. If you're packing it up, place in containers. Keeps in fridge for 3 days.
Juanita says
This salad was a huge hit at my house tonight. I added a head of chopped romaine that was about to go bad. It was really delicious and satisfying. I might chop a Granny Smith apple in it next time just to mix it up a bit. It doesn’t need an apple though - perfect just as it is. Delicious salad!
Thanks Juanita!! So glad the fam like it. I also love the idea of a granny smith apple - tangy and crunchy! I'll try that next time too 🙂
Anne says
Delicious Salad! Thank you for sharing! I didn’t have cucumbers so added romaine lettuce and it still had awesome flavour.
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know Anne - so glad you liked it!