Sometimes while shopping at Whole Foods, I hit up the salad bar. This past trip, I was consciously aware that I needed to make a high protein meal, without using compromised meats (got to keep my nursing supply going strong and healthy for little man).

Turns out, this was my favorite combination yet! I liked it so much, I recreated it at home. The only difference is that instead of using lentils as I did at WF, I used garbanzo beans, since they were already cooked up. Feel free to add any other combinations depending on what’s cooked and available in your fridge.

photo credit

Bean Quinoa Salad

Ingredients:

Salad

• 1 head organic romaine lettuce, chopped
• few handfuls of organic spring mix greens
• 1 cup quinoa, cooked and lightly salted
• 1 cup beans, cooked – I used garbanzo this time and lentils before that
• 1 celery, chopped
• 1/4 cucumber, chopped
• 1/4 tomatoes, chopped
• 2 TB shredded parmesan, or other hard Italian cheese
• any other veggies on hand

Dressing

• 1/8-1/4 cup olive oil
• 1-2 TB raw apple cider vinegar, or 1/2 lemon squeezed
• Herbamare or other organic sea salt spices
• Pink salt to taste
• freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
• 1 clove garlic, using garlic press or minced
• fresh herbs if on hand – like parsley, basil, thyme, oregano

Method:

1. Throw all salad ingredients into a bowl.
2. Add each dressing ingredient one at a time; start with the smaller amounts, toss, taste and see if you need to add more of anything.
3. Adjust according to tastes.

I love this salad as a stand alone meal, either for lunch or dinner. Especially helpful if I fix something for the family that is a high carb meal, while I am still doing lower carbs until baby fat is gone. Enjoy!