Vegetable Quinoa Salad Recipe with Creamy Lemon Dressing

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This Vegetable Quinoa Salad Recipe with Creamy Lemon Dressing is loaded with so much flavor and texture! It’s healthy and easy to make a ahead!

This is my favorite quinoa recipe! My Vegetable Quinoa Salad Recipe with Creamy Lemon Dressing is loaded with flavor, texture, color and is both delicious and nutritious!  This cold salad has so many fresh and flavorful vegetables including cucumber, sweet peppers, radicchio, scallions, and parsley. 

The dressing is a bright Creamy Lemon Dressing with Lemon, honey, mustard, and sour cream.  It is seriously my go-to breakfast, lunch, dinner, & snack dish that I love keep on hand all the time!

Veggie Quinoa Salad is a great recipe to add to your Meatless Mondays meal planning calendar! It’s also an easy recipe for meal prep that’s just as good the next day. You can pack into several lunch containers for the family for the week!

Get on the Quinoa Superfood bandwagon!  

With a Certification in Nutrition and Healthy Living, you can probably guess that I am a fan of quinoa.

Quinoa is actually a seed, not a whole grain or even a grain, though the texture is similar to a grain. It has a mild, slightly nutty flavor. Because the flavor is so mild, it really absorbs any flavors you mix with it. It’s a great side or accompaniment to top with sauces or stews. It’s also great when used to bulk up other foods, such as stuffings, as you will see in the Stuffed Tomato recipe below. It can replace pasta or rice in most recipes.

Quinoa is often referred to as a Superfood because it has so many benefits for healthy eating.

• First, it is high in protein with 1 Cup of quinoa (cooked) containing 8g of complete protein. ‘Complete’ means that it has all of the essential amino acids. To give you an idea of what that means, 1 egg has 6g of protein, so you can see that this is a great addition to any vegetarian meal or diet!
• It contains almost twice as much fiber as most other grains.
• Quinoa also has Iron, the antioxidant Manganese,  Lysine for tissue growth and repair, as well as magnesium, which promotes healthy blood sugar control, energy production, and the formation of healthy bones and teeth.
• Last, but not least, Quinoa is high in Riboflavin (B2), which improves energy metabolism.

It is seriously a Superfood!  You can also try my Cilantro Lime Quinoa or this mouthwatering Quinoa Crust Tart with Tomato, Artichoke, & Goat Cheese or how about this Sunny Quinoa with Fried Egg and Veggie Medley!

Simple Ingredients to Have on Hand!

Fridge or Fresh Ingredients

• English Cucumber, diced – English cucumbers have a delicate thin skin that can be eaten and very fine seeds that can be left in. If you get a regular cucumber, you will want to peel it and may need to cut out the seeds, which can be large.
• Radicchio, sliced – Radicchio brings wonderful bitter flavors and beautiful color. You can substitute in red cabbage or kale or spinach leaves if you don’t have radicchio.
• Red Bell Pepper – Red peppers (orange, yellow or green pepper work too) add wonderful fresh crunch and sweet peppery flavor. If you do not like bell peppers, simply eliminate. You can substitute with halved cherry or grape tomatoes.
• Scallion Greens (green onions), finely sliced – You can substitute chives in for scallions. You can also use shallots or red onions, finely diced.
• Fresh Italian Parsley, chopped – Using fresh herbs in this salad really make it bright. If you don’t have fresh parsley, you can use dill or cilantro, or even basil. However, I would not use dried.
• Fresh Lemon – There is nothing like fresh when it comes to lemon! It adds delicious flavor and brightness.If you don’t have lemon, you can use lime juice. However, for the Creamy Dressing, you could substitute in white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. Balsamic Vinegar will also work.
• Sour Cream – Sour Cream is part of the dressing, so you can substitute in plain greek yogurt. You could also use mayonnaise, but taste before adding in any salt.
• Honey – Honey brings the sweetness to the dressing. You can substitute in white granulated sugar.
• Yellow Mustard – The yellow mustard brings a tart flavor to the dressing. You can eliminate or replace with dijon.

Pantry Ingredients

• White Quinoa, uncooked – there are different varieties of uncooked quinoa widely available, but for this recipe, I find that the white quinoa is perfect. You can substitute with white rice.
• Salt and Ground Black Pepper

Prep-Ahead Steps for this Vegetable Quinoa Recipe!

We are all extremely busy and making dinner during the week can be overwhelming.  Here are the steps that you can do ahead to make it easier!  

Bonus!!  This entire recipe can be made in advance and stored in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Start by rinsing the quinoa thoroughly in a strainer and then cooking it according to package directions. I cook it by adding a cup quinoa to 1 ½ cups water. Bring water to a boil, stire, then reduce to the lowest setting, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Let cool in the fridge.

Next, wash and dice the cucumber, slice the radicchio, dice the red pepper, chop the parsley, and finely slice the scallion, using only the greens for this salad, but save the whites for another recipe.  Mix the cool quinoa and the veggies together in a large bowl

For the Creamy Lemon Dressing, I love the flavor that yellow mustard brings.  It is tangier than dijon and works incredibly well with lemon, sour cream, and honey.

First, zest the Lemon and then cut in half and add the lemon juice from only half of the lemon to a small bowl.  Also to the bowl, add the sour cream, lemon zest, honey, yellow mustard, parsley.

Whisk the ingredients together. Add a dash of salt and fresh ground pepper. Taste for seasoning and add more salt & pepper if needed. Make extra for later and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Add the Creamy Lemon Dressing to the Quinoa Salad and mix with a large fork.  Taste for seasoning and add more salt & pepper if needed.  Enjoy!!

Vegetable Quinoa Salad Recipe FAQs