Warm Quinoa, Tempeh And Black Bean Salad

By Louise

Jan

4

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I had to share tonight’s dinner, because it was awesome!  My inspiration came from Angela’s red quinoa and black bean salad, but I didn’t have all of the ingredients on hand and wanted to adapt it to work with what I had.  It turned out great, so I’m glad I kept track of what I put in!

I cooked a huge batch of black beans in our sun oven a few days ago, so I had lots in the fridge ready to go.  I also happened to have red quinoa in the pantry, although we normally use regular white (beige?) quinoa and I’ll probably do that from now on, given that it’s quite a bit less expensive and easier to find in grocery stores.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup chopped red and green bell peppers
  • 1/2 red onion, chopped
  • 1 package of tempeh (8oz, unflavored – or you could use lemon pepper marinated tempeh)
  • 3 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 cup quinoa, uncooked
  • 1/2 bunch (or more!) of cilantro, chopped
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1.5 cups cooked black beans, rinsed and drained
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • garlic salt to taste

First, I rinsed one cup of quinoa and cooked it with 1.75 cups water.  While that was cooking, I mixed up the rest of the salad.  The whole thing came together in about 20 minutes.

I have lots of frozen chopped bell peppers in the freezer from our garden harvest, so I sauteed about a cup of frozen red and green bell peppers together with the red onion.  You could use fresh peppers if you have them.

Chop the tempeh into bite-size pieces and add it to the pepper and onion mixture.  Then add the 3 Tbsp lemon juice and the garlic, and let it all sautee for a while.  Enjoy the delicious smell!

Meanwhile, use a large mixing bowl to combine the tomatoes, cumin, olive oil, the 1/4 lemon juice, and the black beans.  Once the quinoa is cooked, add that to the bowl along with the onion/pepper/tempeh mixture.

Finally, add the chopped cilantro, garlic salt, salt and pepper.  You can also easily add more lemon juice, cilantro and/or olive oil at this point if you feel like it need it.

Enjoy!

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