You can’t go wrong with this one-pot meal. Eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Take it to a picnic, a potluck, a brunch, or your own kitchen table. For folks with dietary restrictions, it’s the perfect dish to bring to a celebration or gathering when you’re not sure there’ll be anything there you can eat. Make a big batch on Sunday, and see how long it takes to disappear from your refrigerator.
If you don’t have limes, use lemons. If you don’t have fresh basil, try cilantro. If you don’t have a jalapeno pepper, use red pepper flakes instead. If you don’t have scallions, add some zest from the lemon. I guess what I’m trying to say is that even if you don’t have all the ingredients, it will still be delicious! Recipes like this don’t come along every day. Thank you to savvyvegetarian for the original version.
- 3 cups quinoa, cooked and ready to eat
- 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 can, drained and rinsed well)
- 1 small jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced (1 tsp garlic powder)
- 1/2 cup celery, chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled, sliced thinly on the diagonal
- 1 cup yellow or green beans, sliced into 1” pieces
- 1/2 cup each, red and green pepper, diced
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 ripe tomato, medium
- 1 cup cucumber, chopped
- 1/3 cup black olives, sliced
- 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
- 1/4 cup scallions, thinly sliced
- Dressing:
- 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (juice of 2 limes)
- 4 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp dried basil leaf
- black pepper and salt to taste
- Sauté jalapeno and garlic in 1 tsp olive oil until softening. Add celery, carrot, green beans, green & red peppers and sauté 5 minutes. Add cumin and coriander, stir, and cook 2 minutes more.
- Blend together dressing ingredients in a jar and shake well.
- Mix together the quinoa, black beans, sautéed veggies, tomatoes, cucumber, fresh basil and scallions in a large bowl.
- Stir in dressing and stir gently until well combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- May be serve warm, chilled, or at room temperature. You cannot go wrong!
Several years ago, you published a recipe for lovage soup. I had lovage growing in my yard but only used it in salads. I made your lovage soup and loved it. I now freeze handfuls of lovage in freezer bags and have lovage soup all year round. I recently tried something new with lovage that I really like – pesto made with lovage instead of basil. It definitely is pesto but with a very unique taste. I use a fifty-fifty mix of lovage and spinach instead of pesto and follow classic pesto recipes with pinenuts or walnuts, parmasan cheese, garlic and olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste and a little lemon juice is optional. YUM.
Thanks for this great-sounding recipe. I am curious, however, about why you say to rinse canned beans “carefully.” Most recipes using canned beans add the same advice and I wonder why. If the liquid in the cans is so noxious or undesirable, why are the beans themselves okay? thanks for any information.
My understanding is that that the soaking water contains higher levels of oligosaccharides, responsible for some of the GI discomfort associated with eating beans. Also, the starch acts as an additional thickening agent, which is not desirable in many recipes. Thanks for reading! RBS