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This Caprese Style Quinoa Salad is a great way to use up garden tomatoes! It’s a healthy and delicious dish that’s full of traditional Caprese salad flavor!
Holy grape tomatoes, Batman! Our grape tomato plant is popping like crazy right now and taking over our garden! I’ve been dehydrating the majority of our tomatoes to make homemade sun-dried tomatoes and the rest have gone into salads. It’s like we blink and all of a sudden there’s a whole new batch of tomatoes to pick! I’m not actually complaining. I love these sweet, little tomatoes! They’re my “garden candy!” But I had to think of another way to use them.
I’ve been slicing up our meaty beefsteak tomatoes in Caprese salads. Caprese salad will forever be one of my favorite summer salads. It’s so fresh, really easy to make, and best when made with tomatoes and basil straight from the garden. This year, I’ve become a huge fan of quinoa salads, too. Quinoa makes such an awesome base for salads. It’s a superfood that’s high in protein and fiber, and works well in so many dishes! So I figured, what better way to use up some our grape tomatoes than in a Caprese Style Quinoa Salad?!
This salad goes way beyond a basic Caprese salad. Traditional Caprese Salad is sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil with a drizzle of good olive oil. It’s a simple salad, but full of fresh flavor. This quinoa salad recipe includes all of those ingredients, but we brought a few friends to the party, too!
Even though quinoa is already high in protein and fiber, I love to add chickpeas to my quinoa salads. They’re a match made in health food heaven! I also had some black olives in the fridge to use, so I sliced them up and tossed them in. We have red onions growing in our garden, as well, so I diced one up and added it, too!
Ingredients
- 1 cup rainbow quinoa
- 15 oz. can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 1 1/2 cups mini fresh mozzarella pearls
- 2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
- 2/3 cup red onion, diced
- 1/3 cup black olives, sliced
- 2 tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 tbsp. prepared pesto
- 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
- Optional: red pepper flakes
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Cook quinoa according to package. Once cooked, spoon quinoa into a large bowl and set aside to cool.
- Add chickpeas, mozzarella, tomatoes, onion, olives, and basil to the bowl.
- In a small bowl, stir together the lemon juice, peso, and olive oil. Add a pinch of red pepper, if desired.
- Pour pesto mixture into the quinoa bowl. Season with salt and pepper.
- Stir to combine and serve immediately.
- If not serving right away, cover bowl and store in fridge.
Our grape tomatoes definitely aren’t slowing down anytime soon! This quinoa salad was a delicious way to use a bunch of them up! This is the kind of salad that gets better as it sits. If you feel like it needs a little more dressing after a day or two, whip up another batch of the pesto, olive oil, and lemon juice dressing! It’s even great with a drizzle of balsamic! It’s also great for meal prepping! Make it at the beginning of the week and enjoy it all week long!
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