I love this salad for the textures. The grainy quinoa, smooth with the avocado, the tender chew factor from asparagus, the crispy pops with the toasted pepitas, the butter from the butter lettuce, and most of all for the lemon zest and the dressing, that lemon zing with the herbs! Hint: If you have an orange handy, use the zest of that too. So good!
Ingredient Snapshot! ~ What's Inside?
The Asparagus:
Snap off the wooden ends with your hands before cooking. Usually they will bend and snap at the natural break between wooden and golden, just using slight pressure. They are high in folate, Vitamin K, A and minerals you need too!
Why are some asparagus stalks skinny and some fat you ask? It’s the age of the plant. The
older it gets the fatter it gets….happens in the animal kingdom too!
The Quinoa:
I used red quinoa (see photo) but you can use the white too. The red is a bit more textured. This grain is gluten free and good on the minerals too. It also contains all the amino acids you need which makes it a complete protein.
Though the body breaks it all down into their essential amino acids anyway, and you don’t need to ingest all of them at the same time, and usually Americans have too much protein in their diet…Sorry this brings up my “you won’t get enough protein being vegan” trauma. Worry about your fiber, vitamins and minerals and the protein will follow friends! Talk to the elephants…
The Dressing:
Make it separately to put on other things. If you do this, put the lemon zest in with the rest of the ingredients in the bowl when you mix. Letting it sit for 30 min (if you can wait) really let’s the flavors marinate. Double the batch!
The Lettuce:
Butter is better because its delicate texture kind of melts in your mouth and leaving the leaves whole act as a nice malleable cup to put the salad inside and wrap.
EZ Asparagus Avocado Quinoa Salad Recipe
Serves 4
1 lbs asparagus, hard ends removed
1.5 qts water
1 tsp salt
1 head butter lettuce
4 cups cooked quinoa
1 avocado, cut in ½ inch cubes
¼ cup olive oil
1 lemon, juiced and zested
2 Tbsp chopped Italian parsley
1 Tbsp chopped cilantro
1 Tbsp chopped mint
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp maple syrup
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper
4 Tbsp pumpkin seeds, toasted or sprouted
- Bring 2 qts of water to boil with 1 tsp. salt.
- Drop in asparagus and let cook for about 2 minutes.
- Immediately drain and rinse in cold water. Cut in approximately 2 inch pieces and place in a medium sized bowl.
- Remove butter lettuce leaves from the head and rinse and dry well, set aside.
- Place the quinoa and chopped avocado in the bowl with the asparagus.
- Zest the lemon over the quinoa, avocado and asparagus.
- In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, cilantro, mint, balsamic, maple, salt and pepper.
- Pour over asparagus, avocado and quinoa and toss.
- Serve plated with some butter lettuce leaves or any kind of beautiful lettuce.
- Garnish topped with pumpkin seeds.