Perfect salad to make when entertaining friends or family – fresh, filling, and colorful!
Cranberry-Mint Grain Salad
Bring on the health benefits! This salad, packed with a bountiful number of vitamins, minerals, and nutritional benefits, was inspired by a recipe on Martha Stewart’s website.
Initially calling for the grains to be flash-fried, I decided instead to add flavor by marinating the grains in the cranberry-mint vinaigrette. To replace the texture added by the crispy grains, I added sunflower seeds and baked French onions. Feel free to make your own delicious amendments.
Enjoy!
Cranberry-Mint Grain Salad
Satisfying salad, graced with color and flavor
Servings: 8
Calories: 283kcal
Ingredients
Vinaigrette
- ⅓ cup mint fresh, thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp lemon juice fresh
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar
- ½ tsp agave nectar
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- Pinch salt
Salad
- 1 cup quinoa cooked
- 1 cup millet cooked
- 1 cup buckwheat
- 1 cup edamame cooked
- 1 cup cranberries fresh
- 3 scallions thinly sliced
- 2 cups arugula
- 2 cups spinach
Instructions
Vinaigrette
- In a small bowl mix all vinaigrette ingredients together (adjust to your liking) – mint, lemon, white-wine vinegar, agave, red pepper flakes, salt.
Salad
- Cook grains according to their individual instruction. Since you are already cooking up the grains,
I would go ahead and make extra everything… then you have grains on hand for
your next creation. Once your grains are cooked – place them in the fridge to cool them down quickly. Cook up your edamame and then do the same thing, place them in the fridge to cool down.
Side note: make sure to strategically salt your grains and edamame while they cook to ensure you “salt from within”.Assembly – On your favorite platter place the greens, top with grains, edamame, cranberries and scallions. Then drizzle with the mint vinaigrette.