Oh, Sunday! I can’t believe it’s already Sunday afternoon – thank god it’s a public holiday tomorrow in Zurich and I can enjoy another day off! Free time means I have time to cook and prepare meals for the upcoming week – and try out new recipes like this one! I love, love, love quinoa – it’s absolutely delicious and can be used in so many ways it’s crazy. Now that the sun is out and the weather is amazingly warm again (cross fingers that it stays!), I start having salads more often. It just feels right, so fresh, when it’s warm outside. Instead of the boring leaf salads I try mixing it up from time to time and decided on making a quinoa salad this weekend using my favorite ingredients.

As always, this recipe is gluten free and diary free – even vegan this time around!

What you need

1 cup quinoa
1 avocado
cilantro
1 cup crushed cashews
2 lemons
4 ripe tomatos 
1 tablespoon golden syrup (you can also use agave or any other syrup you like)
3 tablespoons cold-pressed olive oil

What to do

1) cook the quinoa with 2 ½ cups of water and the juice of 1 lemon
2) cut the avocado, cilantro, and tomatoes 
3) crush the cashews if you have whole ones and place them in a heated pan
4) add the golden (or any other) syrup to the nuts and roast them for 3-4 minutes on mid-temperature until they reach a nice gold brown color
5) once the quinoa is cooked, add all the previously mentioned ingredients and mix it up with a spoon
6) add the juice of the second lemon and the olive oil – now mix everything one final time

Voila, now you can

1) eat it directly, whilst it is warm or 
2) let it cool in the fridge for an hour – it’s when the salad starts really soaking in all tastes (& tastes amazing!)

For serving purposes I like adding some fresh mint leaves on top – it not only looks great, but gives the whole salad another fresh taste kick!

As always, I’d love to see your versions of it – make sure to add #StylePhantomrecipes when reposting it on Instagram or similar!

With that, I wish you a deliciously spent Sunday. xo