Warm Green Quinoa Salad with Avocado, Lima Beans, and Feta Cheese

It’s finally my favorite time of the semester here in Philly, aka Restaurant Week! Basically for two weeks, twice a year, most of the best restaurants in town offer a $35 three-course menu. It’s an amazing deal for college students to have a taste of delicious places in town, that would otherwise be out of reach. I always anxiously await the dates to make reservations well in advance and discover a new place every time.

This time around I went to “Buddakan”, Stephen Starr’s world famous Asian fusion restaurant, which was absolutely amazing! His Edamame Dumplings were unreal, followed by an equally out-of-this-world Short Rib Chow fun, and a mouth-watering chocolate lava cake with coffee ice cream to end on a sweet note. Next week, I’m going to “Zahav” to discover Mike Solomonov and Steven Cook’s middle-eastern cuisine, which was awarded the 2009 title of best Restaurant in Philadelphia! Yet, as exciting as it is, it’s still a good budget so I’ve been trying to cook at home as often as possible prior to these two weeks. It’s been exciting though, as I get to be creative every single day and come up with dishes like this one!

I’ll admit that my thought process behind this salad was also largely motivated by the ambition to empty my fridge before restaurant week… I had a lot of vegetables that I needed to use at once and they just all happened to be green so I thought it’d be a good mix. Dressing included! Worked out well, don’t you think?

As the seasons are changing, so are my go-to recipes. So in many ways, this salad is a transitional one. I’ve been in the mood for warm, grain-based, salads recently (remember my Warm Farro and Apple salad?), as I feel like it’s the perfect compromise between Summer and Spring. It’s still too soon to go into soup season, but I’m also not craving big bowls of fresh green leaves as much. This salad is hearty, filling, beautiful, tasty and so on. It’s also really quick to make even if you have to prepare the toppings separately. I like to make two batches at once so that I can just have the other one later in the week, without having to cook anything. Bon appétit!

Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup quinoa
• 1/2 avocado
• a good chunk of feta cheese
• 1/3 cup fresh lima beans
• a few sprigs of fresh Thai basil
• 1/2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• sea salt and ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Bring salted water to a boil in two pots. In the first one, cook the quinoa for the time indicated on the packaging (about 10-15 minutes). In the second one, cook the fresh lima beans for 10-12 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, prep the other ingredients. Dice the avocado half and the chunk of feta, chop the fresh Thai basil and set everything aside.
3. When the quinoa is ready, toss it with the avocado, feta cheese, lima beans, lime juice, and olive oil. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and enjoy!

TIP: I absolutely love this salad warm, as the feta softens and the quinoa soaks up the lime dressing more fully but you can definitely prep it in advance and have it as a cold dish. 

Temps total: 20 minutes

Ingrédients: 

• 45g de quinoa
• 1/2 avocat
• une bonne tranche de feta
• 70g de fèves
• quelques brins de basilique Thaï frais
• 1/2 c.s de jus de citron vert
• 1 c.s d’huile d’olive
• sel de mer et poivre noir moulu

Etapes:

1. Faites bouillir de l’eau salée dans deux casseroles. Dans la première, faites cuire la quinoa pendant le temps indiqué sur l’emballage (environ 15 minutes). Dans la deuxième, faites cuire les fèves pendant environ 10-12 minutes.
2. Pendant ce temps, préparez les autres ingrédients. Détaillez le demi avocat et la fêta en dès, ciselez le basilique Thaï, et mettez le tout de côté.
3. Lorsque la quinoa est prête, mettez la dans un bol, et mélangez la avec l’avocat, la fêta, les fèves, le jus de citron vert et l’huile d’olive. Ajustez l’assaisonnement et bon appétit!

LE PLUS: J’adore cette salade encore tiède, de sorte que la fêta ramollisse un peu et que les graines de quinoa absorbent plus facilement la sauce, mais elle est aussi délicieuse préparée à l’avance et servie froide.