Kale & Quinoa Salad with Lemon-Parsley Dressing

This is a dense, nutrient rich lunch salad. It gets two points. One, because it’s healthy and two, because it’s  sooo TASTY! The magic here is the dressing and the sweet, crisp apples. When I eat this salad I feel energetic and satisfied. 

Kale, is loaded with calcium and helps lower cholesterol. And I quote, (from this website) “Researchers can now identify over 45 different flavonoids in kale. With kaempferol and quercetin heading the list, kale’s flavonoids combine both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits in way that gives kale a leading dietary role with respect to avoidance of chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.” Sounds good to me.

Quinoa (Keen-Wa) as you probably know, is a “complete protein” it has more fiber than a slice of bread and is a natural source of iron.

If you make a batch of quinoa at the beginning of the week, you’ll have it to add to healthy recipes like this one, making lunch much quicker. I always cook it with a little olive oil and good quality salt.

Serves 1

For the Salad-

• 2 c. Kale, chopped
• 1/2 c. Cooked Quinoa
• 1/2 c. Apples, chopped (braeburn apples are sweet and tart)
• 1 T. Scallions, chopped

For the Dressing-

• 1/8 c. Fresh lemon juice (1/2 a lemon)
• 1 T. Fresh parsley, minced
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp Agave nectar
• 1 T. Olive oil
• Salt (just a smidge)
• Fresh cracked pepper

In a small bowl, stir ingredients to make the dressing. In a large bowl combine the salad ingredients and toss in the dressing.

I served mine with homemade garlic hummus and blue corn chips.