Use your favorite roasted veggies & grains in this easy kale quinoa salad, or make it as Day 2 of our 5-day meal plan with leftovers from Day 1!
Hi, and welcome to my week of meal planning: Day 2!
In case you missed yesterday’s post, here’s what’s happening: I started with one base meal – yesterday’s Mean Green Grain Bowls. For 5 days I’ll be making a new meal each day using those base ingredients and components. So you’re basically seeing our real-life dinner, day to day. These recipes are very simple, but this is how we eat in real life – and I thought it would be fun to share that! So here’s today’s: an easy Big Green Kale Quinoa Salad!
Something I love to do with leftovers is make them stretch! We had one leftover container full of yesterday’s grain bowl which included quinoa, roasted veggies (Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, parsnips, and broccolini), sauerkraut, and pepitas. I massaged a big bunch of kale, tossed it all together, and doused it in the creamy kale pepita pesto sauce that I made the other day.
This healthy kale quinoa salad is as easy as that! Oh, except I also roasted some of the leftover chickpeas, until crisp, and tossed those in too:
Kale Quinoa Salad Recipe Variations
Both of these meals (yesterday’s and today’s) are super flexible – swap in any roasted vegetables that you like or feel free to change up the protein if you’re not feeling like chickpeas. Here are a few suggestions:
- If you don’t have leftovers from Day 1 on hand, toss in some cooked quinoa or farro and your favorite roasted vegetables (you can cook them while you roast the chickpeas!). In addition to the vegetables pictured above, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and broccoli would all be great.
- Use pickled red onion instead of the sauerkraut.
- Swap the chickpeas for baked tofu, French green lentils, or white beans.
- Add some feta cheese or goat cheese if you’re not vegan.
- Or use cilantro lime dressing or traditional pesto in place of the kale pepita pesto sauce.
Let me know what variations you try, and then make Day 3 of this week’s meal plan!
Record your meals in our pretty (new!) meal planner: The Love & Lemons Meal Record & Market List. It’ll also make a great Mother’s Day Gift!
If you love this kale quinoa salad recipe…
Try my rainbow kale salad, pasta salad, broccoli salad, beet salad, or Brussels sprout salad next!
Kale Quinoa Salad with Pesto
- ½ cup cooked chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and dried
- Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
- 1 bunch of kale, stems removed (save the stems, we'll use them in a recipe coming up)
- about 2 cups of Mean Green Grain Bowl leftovers
- generous scoops of Creamy Kale Pepita Pesto
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Preheat the oven to 425°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drizzle the chickpeas with olive oil and roast for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and lightly crisp. Season with salt and pepper as they come out of the oven.
- Tear the kale leaves into bite-sized pieces. Add a scoop of the pesto sauce and use your hands to massage the kale leaves until they're soft and wilted. The oils from the sauce will help break down the coarse leaves.
- Mix the grain bowl leftovers into the kale salad, along with a few more scoops of the pesto sauce. Add the chickpeas and serve with more sauce, as desired
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Do you blanch the broccolini before roasting it, or just roast it? I have some in the frig but have not used it before. thks!
Hi Barbara, I just roast it! No need to blanch.
Okay! PINNED it!
I’m so in love with your salad. One point that I always like about salad is that we can take advantage of leftovers. That’s so helpful all the time.
Love this meal plan! Would love if you can do it more often as it’s super helpful and really helps with the weekly planning!
Hi Nicole – thanks so much for letting me know that it’s helpful!! I had tons of fun putting it all together so I’m definitely planning to do it more often.
This salad looks so freshy, tasty, and very healthly. By the way beautiful picture.