This simple vegan quinoa salad with tomato, cucumber and olives is quick and easy to make and perfect to serve alongside a barbecue or any main meal.
I love quinoa salads and have a couple on the blog – Quinoa and Lentil Salad, Quinoa, Feta and Roasted Pepper Salad, Warm Roasted Red Pepper and Halloumi Quinoa Salad and Quick and Easy Chicken and Quinoa Salad Recipe with Zingy Dressing to name a few. This salad is even quicker and even easier than those!
With lots of fresh and bright flavours – including lemon and mint – it makes a wonderful salad to enjoy throughout the summer with hot dogs, burgers or barbecued fish.
It’s also fabulous for meal prep – make a big batch at the weekend and enjoy for your lunches throughout the week.
Ingredients, Substitutions and Variations
- Quinoa – use 500g of dried quinoa. You can use precooked to make this salad even easier to make, but cooking quinoa from scratch is easy to do.
- Black olives – I love the salty, savoury flavour of olives with quinoa. You can switch for green olives if you like. Just make sure that they have had their stones removed.
- Tomatoes – use good, fresh tomatoes. The better the quality, the tastier they will be! I got some lovely plum tomatoes from my local greengrocer.
- Cucumber – adds freshness to this recipe.
- Olive oil – again, the better the quality, the better the taste.
- Lemon – we use the juice from a lemon here. Freshly squeezed lemon juice is much tastier than the bottled variety.
- Mint – you could substitute for some parsley if you have it to hand.
Quick and Easy Quinoa, Tomato, Cucumber and Olive Salad
An easy salad with quinoa, tomato, cucumber, black olives, lemon and mint. Delicious as a side dish for a barbecue or as a light vegetarian main course. Serves 6 as a side or 4 as a main.
Start Cooking in Cook Mode
Ingredients
- 500 grams quinoa
- 150 grams black olives pitted, drained weight
- 150 grams plum tomatoes
- 1 cucumber
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 lemon
- 20 grams fresh mint
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Put the quinoa in a saucepan and add enough cold water to cover it by 1 inch. Put on a medium heat, bring to the boil then simmer for 20 minutes until cooked. Drain off any excess water then transfer to a large bowl to cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
- Cut the tomatoes into 1-2cm pieces. Cut the cucumber into quarters lengthways, then finely chop. Finely chop the mint.
- Add the olives, tomatoes and cucumber to the quinoa. Drizzle over the olive oil. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice over the quinoa. Add the mint and salt. Stir well.
Video
Notes
- When made, this salad can be kept in the fridge, covered, for 3-4 days.
So easy to make and perfect for lunch prep for the week ahead!