Quinoa Salad with Avocado

IMPORTANT NOTE!!: This dish sounds like it has a lot of ingredients, but they’re actually VERY cheap since it is comprised of mostly vegetables. For the jalapeno pepper, tomato, avocado, cilantro, and cucumber, I spent less than $2! And you can definitely make more than one serving with many of the ingredients, so don’t let the ingredients list throw you off!

I am not a huge fan of plain avocado, but it adds so much creaminess to dishes! This was my first time adding in chunks of avocado and it was delicious. I like my quinoa salads very chunky so if you want less chunk and more quinoa, feel free to change the amount of the ingredients. Make it your own!

INGREDIENTS (1 serving):

• 1/4 cup of quinoa cooked
• 1/3 of large cucumber chopped and seeded
• 1 roma tomato chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper finely chopped
• 1/2 lime
• 1 tablespoon of finely chopped red onion
• Handful of cilantro chopped
• 1/4 avocado sliced into small chunks
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (more or less)
• 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
• Cayenne pepper (OPTIONAL for that extra kick!)

1. Sprinkle your chopped cucumber with a generous amount of salt and toss. Let sit for about 10-15 minutes
2. Chop up rest of ingredients and cook quinoa
3. Rinse and drain cucumber, patting dry with paper towel
4. Add tomatoes, jalapeno pepper, onions and toss with the cucumbers. Add a dash of salt, dash of pepper, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and squeeze in a little less than half of a lime. It depends on how much juice the lime has (taste it and add to your liking)
5. Add in the fluffed quinoa (for those of you who have never cooked quinoa before, you must “fluff” the quinoa AKA toss it lightly with a fork instead of mashing it so that the grains don’t break). If you don’t know how to make quinoa, look at the bottom of this recipe. ☃
6. Mix all together and season if needed, also adding in the cilantro. Add the sliced avocado once the dish is ready to be served so that they do not brown. *You can coat them with a bit of lime juice so that they do not brown as quickly.
7. HAPPY EATING! 🙂

☃ Rinse quinoa first with water and drain. Using a 1:2 ratio of quinoa to water, put the contents into a pot and start to boil. Once the quinoa starts boiling, turn off the heat, and cover for about 15 minutes. By the time it is done cooking, there should not be any left over water at the bottom of the pot.