Quinoa Summer Salad with Coconut Milk Dressing

This Quinoa Summer Salad checks a lot of boxes for me – it’s bright, filling, zesty, and light enough that I can eat it all summer long. And let me let you in on a secret – the coconut milk dressing is SO good. It will change your life. This Quinoa and Lentil Salad is packed with fruit and vegetables to make it flavorful, but it’s the dressing that really makes it sing. Inspired by Chef Gregory Gourdet’s restaurant Kann in Portland, OR, which has an amazing cherry and cherry tomato salad in coconut milk dressing, this dressing is a balance of sweet, spicy, lime-y and salty. It’s hard to explain how good it is, so I’m just going to trust that this blog post will make you want to try it for yourself!

After you try it once, it’ll be hard not to put it on everything.

But the dressing is not the only merit of this salad – this quinoa and lentil bowl is perfect for summer meal prep. It’s hearty but doesn’t weigh you down, and it lasts in the fridge for up to five days. It’s a great grain salad to eat at the beginning of the week for dinner, and then use for lunches as you need them! I have some sitting in my fridge right now – so consider my point proven.

How to build the best quinoa summer salad or grain bowl

I have a few salad-building rules I find helpful, especially when I’m looking to make the best quinoa lentil grain bowl out there. Here are my rules to live by, which I hope this recipe covers:

• Use herbs, and a lot of them – They are a bright, nutritious flavor! Why use lettuce when there are herbs is always my POV. Here I use mint and cilantro, but you can mix and match as you see fit.
• Use pantry staples as your base – quinoa and lentils are my pantry staples but you can use any bean or grain. A good grain bowl is always available if you have them on hand.
• Build a dressing that is flavor-forward – with these bowls, a lot relies on the dressing. Make sure it has layers of flavor, as well as a salty element, an acidic element, and a bit of spice.
• Season the salad before adding the dressing – before I toss a grain bowl, I always add salt and a hit of vinegar, it changes every salad tenfold.

Ingredients you will need

• 1 heaping cup quinoa, any kind
• 1 heaping cup black lentils
• 1 medium Fresno pepper, seeds removed
• 1 cup fresh mint leaves, loosely packed
• 1 cup fresh cilantro, rough ends of the stems removed
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 teaspoon lime zest, about 1/2 of a lime
• 2 tablespoons lime juice, about 1 juicy lime
• 1/3 cup yogurt or skyr
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
• 1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 medium peach, thinly sliced
• 1 medium cucumber, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• Freshly ground black pepper

How to prepare the Coconut Milk Dressing

Finely chop up half of the Fresno pepper, 6 mint leaves and 2 tablespoons worth of cilantro, add these to a medium bowl. Grate in the garlic and lime zest. Add in the lime juice, skyr, coconut milk and honey and whisk. Season with about a teaspoon of salt, plus more to taste. Set this aside.

Storage tips

What I love about this recipe is that it’s easy to store. The quinoa absorbs all the flavor from the dressing, so it just gets better as it sits. The lentils are nice and perky since we avoid cooking them into oblivion, which means they keep well in the fridge as well.

If you want to maintain this salads shelf life for as long as possible, I would hold out on adding the herbs and dressing until you eat it. You can store the herbs pre-torn and in a separate container, and you can keep the dressing in a jar. This will keep the salad at its peak. Although, it will taste just as good if you store the combined version, too (it just might look a little less pretty, but looks aren’t everything!).

This whole salad will keep in the fridge for 4-5 days.

Watch the recipe here

The video may not fully represent the recipe. For best results, follow the instructions as written.

@justine_snacks

Limey coconut milk dressing on a summer quinoa lentil situation!

♬ ThisIsWhatYouCameFor(Remix) – HEST

Looking for other easy lunches?

Here are a few of my favorites from the blog!

And that’s it for this Quinoa and Black Lentil Summer Salad with Coconut Milk Dressing!

If you make it, please tag me on Pinterest or Instagram so I can see! It’s my favorite thing to scroll through stories and see what you all are making.

And of course feel free to leave any questions, comments or reviews! This is the best place to reach me, and I’d love to hear from you <3