- Hey dudes, I'm Hilah and today on Hilah Cooking,
♫ we're making quinoa salad, it's a rainbow quinoa salad.
♫ It's got all the colors of the rainbow.
♫ It's got red, orange, yellow,
♫ green and violet.
♫ The only ones it doesn't have are blue and indigo. ♫
(bright electronic music)
For this rainbow quinoa salad,
obviously we need to cook some quinoa.
I'm using a blend here today,
it's a white and red mix, but you can get black quinoa.
They all pretty much taste the same.
The white one is the cheapest.
So all I did was put a cup of quinoa in a pot
and added one and a half cups of water and a pinch of salt.
Cover that, bring it up to a boil.
Once it's boiling, you'll wanna turn it down
as low as it'll go and let it simmer for about 12 minutes.
Then, turn the heat off and add some frozen
or fresh corn kernels and put the lid back on
and let it sit for another five or 10 minutes.
And, this is what it looks like.
My quinoa is cooked and my corn is no longer frozen,
it's so warm and you want that.
Whenever you're doing any kind of grain salad
or potato salad or any kind of starch-salad I guess,
the dressing soaks in better if you put it on
when the food is still warm.
And I know I'm gonna catch some shit
because I did not rinse my quinoa.
I have rinsed it and I have not rinsed it
and I honestly cannot tell a difference at all,
like it's supposed to be bitter if you don't rinse it.
Maybe my bitter taste buds are weak, I don't know.
But whatever it is, if it keeps me from having to
rinse the damn quinoa, it's okay with me.
So rinse it if you are sensitive to bitter flavors, I guess.
I'm gonna add some olive oil, about two tablespoons.
Look at me, I'm like Rachael Ray, just eyeballin' it.
And then some orange juice, so healthy
and some mustard, which is all ready like,
splooging out here.
About a tablespoon.
And salt and pepper.
You don't need a whole lot of salt,
because I did cook the quinoa with some salt.
But you know, add a little bit more.
And then just get this all mixed up.
And see the orange juice and everything just like,
immediately absorbed into the quinoa,
so that's great.
And another thing I love about this salad
is you can make it and it will stay good
in the fridge for like, an entire week.
So you can just make it on the weekend
and then take it for lunch.
And if you wanna add some protein,
some tofu or some grilled chicken
or something like that, even better.
But quinoa is really high in protein on its own,
so this is a good vegan, high-protein, main-dish salad.
So once that's all incorporated I'm gonna add in my rainbow.
So I've all ready got my yellow in there, my corn
and I'm gonna add red bell pepper
and carrots.
And then my green, I've got celery,
green onions and some basil.
But I've also made this with parsley and dill
and those are both really nice.
So just, some kinda fresh herb.
And then I'm using radicchio,
which if you don't like bitter flavors, (laughs)
you might not like this.
Apparently I can't taste bitter, so I like it.
But if you don't, then some finely-shredded
red cabbage would also be nice
and not bitter.
Lovely.
I've also toasted some slivered almonds.
I just put 'em in a dry skillet
over kind of medium-high heat and
shook it around frequently for maybe
two to three minutes, until they start to smell nutty
and they turn a little bit golden-brown.
And this is what my toasted almonds look like.
I really suggest toasting all nuts before you use them,
It makes such a huge difference in the flavor.
So, you wanna add the nuts right before you serve
so that they don't get soft
and they stay nice and crunchy.
So I'm gonna go ahead and do that.
And I also did another quinoa salad a few years ago
that's a spicy like, jalapeno quinoa salad.
I'll put a link to that below if you want another variation.
It's also vegetarian, as I recall.
It's been a while.
And then just top it with a few
little nuts and give it a taste.
Ooh, so beautiful
and so delicious, oh my God I love the basil in there!
Mmm, do you hear how crunchy it is?
(light electronic music)
There's some crunchy chewing
for all you ASMR chewing weirdos.
Thank you so much for watching,
don't forget to subscribe
and I will see you next Thursday with another video,
bye!
(bright electronic music)