Quinoa black bean salad

I'm finally feeling better! I haven't been doing much cooking lately but I have a few posts from the last month that I've been working on but never published. Here's one of them! I made this salad for lunches during the week and it's a perfect main dish for lunch or side dish for a summer BBQ. (We just bought a grill yesterday so summer meals are on my mind!) I got the recipe from Oh She Glows (again). Angela's recipes are just too good to pass up. The pictures on her site and the one I use here are all with red quinoa which makes this colorful dish even more colorful, but I only had the regular quinoa on hand- it was still beautiful and very tasty. It's supposed to be 83 degrees and sunny here today in Colorado and this dish would be a perfect thing to make! If it's cold and rainy where you are it would also be perfect- it will put you in a sunny mood:)

Ingredients:

For the salad:

1 cup uncooked quinoa

1 (14 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 red pepper, chopped

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped

2 green onions chopped

1 cup fresh corn (optional)

1 small avocado, chopped into 1 inch pieces

For the dressing:

4-5 Tbs fresh lime juice (juice from 2 small limes

1/2 tsp salt, or to taste

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 garlic love, minced

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp ground cumin, or more to taste

1. Cook 1 cup of quinoa according to package directions.

2. While quinoa is cooking, prepare the chopped vegetables and whisk together the dressing.

3. Allow quinoa to cool after cooking for about 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Add the beans and vegetables and toss well.

4. Drizzle dressing over salad and toss well with salt and pepper to taste. Bring salad to room temperature before serving (I didn't do this and it was still pretty tasty). Keep fresh in a sealed container for 1-2 days. Makes about 5 cups.

Photo from Oh She Glows blog.