This Mediterranean Salad with Quinoa is not only healthy and easy to make, but it's vegan and gluten-free! Made with a simple lemon dressing, this recipe is a Moroccan variation on Tabouli, made with naturally gluten-free, fluffy quinoa. It's also Weight Watchers friendly, dairy-free and can be made in under 30 minutes.If you're a fan of the bright, zesty flavors of Mediterranean cuisine but need a meal that keeps you full longer, this quinoa salad is exactly what you need.
Originally given to me by a coworker years ago, the original recipe used couscous. While delicious, I made it my mission to give it a healthy makeover by swapping in fluffy, protein-packed quinoa. Mediterranean Quinoa Salad (vegan) is popular all year round, but especially popular in the summer. This cold summer salad is the perfect side dish for a BBQ, and if you're looking for quinoa recipes for lunch, this makes a great lunch box meal too!
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- Recipe Overview: Mediterranean Salad with Quinoa
- Summarize and Save this Content on:
- Quinoa vs. Couscous
- 🥘 Ingredient Notes
- 📖Variations & Substitutions
- 🔪Step-by-Step: How to Make Mediterranean Quinoa Salad
- Expert Recipe Tips
- 🥗 What to Serve with Mediterranean Salad with Quinoa
- 👪 Serving Size
- 🔢WW Points & Calories in a Quinoa Greek Salad
- 🌡️Storage
- ❔ Recipe FAQs
- Didn't find the answer you're looking for?
- 🥗More Easy Salad Recipes!
- 📋 Mediterranean Quinoa salad (vegan) recipe
Love quinoa? Be sure to try my Avocado Breakfast Bowl (without bread) too!
Recipe Overview: Mediterranean Salad with Quinoa
- Ready In: 25 minutes
- Serves: 8
- Calories: 186 kcal (approximately)
- Main Ingredients: quinoa, cucumbers, tomatoes, onion
- Dietary info: vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, Weight Watchers Friendly
- Weight Watchers points: 5 ww points
- Difficulty: Easy
- Why You'll Love It: This delicious, protein-packed salad delivers zesty Mediterranean flavors in under 30 minutes, making it the perfect healthy, vegan, and gluten-free meal or side dish for any occasion!
Summarize and Save this Content on:
Quinoa vs. Couscous
Although couscous looks healthy, it's really a simple carb with a nutritional value similar to white pasta. Whereas quinoa is not only gluten-free, it's a complete source of protein, has more nutrients, and double the fiber of couscous. Couscous is a little faster to make (5 minutes, as opposed to 15) but you can still make this salad in under 30 minutes. You can read more here about the health benefits of quinoa vs couscous.
🥘 Ingredient Notes
- Quinoa: I recommend white quinoa for this salad as it has the fluffiest texture, but a tri-color blend works beautifully for extra visual pop.
- English Cucumber: These are preferred because they have thinner skins and fewer seeds, which keeps the salad from getting too watery.
- Tomatoes: Roma tomatoes are great because they are "meaty," but you can also use halved grape or cherry tomatoes for a burst of sweetness.
- Fresh Mint & Cilantro: These are the soul of the salad! Do not substitute with dried herbs; the fresh aromatics are what make this recipe sing!
- Lemon Juice & White Vinegar: The combination of both provides a complex acidity that balances the nutty quinoa. Always use fresh lemon juice for the best flavor.
- Olive Oil: Use a high-quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) as the flavor really shines through in this simple dressing.
📖Variations & Substitutions
- Tomatoes - you can use Roma, Hothouse, grape tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes
- Cucumbers - you can use baby cucumbers instead of English cucumbers
- Red Onion - you can substitute white onion or green onions
- Salt - you can use kosher salt or sea salt instead of regular table salt
- Add-ins - fresh parsley, vegan feta cheese, garbanzo beans, or red bell peppers
🔪Step-by-Step: How to Make Mediterranean Quinoa Salad
- Step 1: Cook Quinoa as directed on the package.
- Step 2: While quinoa is cooking, chop cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and herbs. Cool quinoa.
- Step 3: Put quinoa in a bowl and add olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and herbs. Stir in cucumber, tomato, onion, and herbs. Serve or chill for 30 minutes and serve.
Expert Recipe Tips
- Cool the Quinoa: Never mix hot quinoa with your fresh vegetables. It will wilt the herbs and make the cucumbers mushy. Spreading the cooked quinoa on a large plate or baking sheet helps it cool to room temperature in minutes.
- Uniform Dicing: For the best mouthfeel, try to dice your cucumbers and tomatoes to be roughly the same size as a chickpea. This ensures you get a bit of everything in every bite.
- The Herb Hack: To quickly chop mint and cilantro, bunch them into a tight ball and use a sharp chef's knife to slice through. Don't over-chop, or they will turn into a paste!
- Salt the Tomatoes: If you have an extra 5 minutes, salt your chopped tomatoes in a separate bowl and drain the excess juice before adding them to the salad. This prevents the salad from becoming "soupy" the next day.
🥗 What to Serve with Mediterranean Salad with Quinoa
Mediterranean Salad with Quinoa pairs well with One Pan Chicken Parmesan and Marinated Maple BBQ Pork Loin Steaks. However, if you're looking for something more Mediterranean to serve with this salad, then try my Chicken Souvlaki Wrap or my Grilled Greek Ribs alongside this quinoa salad!
This Mediterranean Quinoa Salad recipe also makes a great make-ahead lunch!
Looking to add a little more protein? Add some grilled chicken pieces (you can buy these pre-cooked and frozen for convenience), take a hard-boiled egg on the side, or keep it vegan by adding some chickpeas (garbanzo beans)!
👪 Serving Size
This lemon dressing quinoa salad recipe makes 8 servings. However, you can half, double, or triple the recipe by clicking on the serving number and selecting the number of servings you'd like. The ingredient quantities will automatically adjust.
🔢WW Points & Calories in a Quinoa Greek Salad
This vegan quinoa salad recipe is Weight Watchers friendly @ 5 WW points per serving (¾ cup)
This cucumber tomato quinoa salad has 186 calories for about ¾ cup.
🌡️Storage
Store leftover quinoa salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days. After this, the veggies start to get mushy. It's best to make it right before serving.
If you want to make it a day in advance, keep the dressing, the quinoa, and the vegetables in separate containers and combine just before serving. If you are packing it for lunch, it can be mixed together the night before.
These ingredients do not stand up to freezing. However, you can freeze the quinoa on it's own for up to 3 months.
❔ Recipe FAQs
Yes! While couscous is a processed pasta, quinoa is a whole grain (technically a seed) that is a complete protein, meaning it contains all nine essential amino acids. It also has double the fiber of couscous, making it much more Weight Watchers friendly!
You can, but for the best texture, I recommend prepping the quinoa and the veggies separately. Mix them together a few hours before serving. If mixed too far in advance, the vinegar can start to break down the cucumbers.
If you are one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, simply swap it for fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley.
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So if you are looking for a healthy Greek quinoa salad recipe, you will love this one!
And if you're interested in additional vegan and gluten-free salads, then check out this Easy Bean Salad!
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📋 Mediterranean Quinoa salad (vegan) recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cups quinoa
- 1 cucumber long english
- 2 tomatoes
- ⅓ cup red onion/white onion
- 4 tablespoon olive oil
- 4 tablespoon white vinegar
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice *** fresh lemon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro
- 2 tablespoon fresh mint
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper (optional)
Garnish
- additional mint (optional)
- additional cilantro (optional)
Instructions
- Cook Quinoa as directed on box. While quinoa is cooking, chop cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and herbs.
- Put quinoa in bowl and add olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt and herbs. Stir in cucumber, tomato, onion and herbs. Serve or chill for 30 minutes and serve.
Garnish
- Garnish with additional mint and basil, if desired.
Notes
- Cool the Quinoa: Never mix hot quinoa with your fresh vegetables. It will wilt the herbs and make the cucumbers mushy. Spreading the cooked quinoa on a large plate or baking sheet helps it cool to room temperature in minutes.
- Uniform Dicing: For the best mouthfeel, try to dice your cucumbers and tomatoes to be roughly the same size as a chickpea. This ensures you get a bit of everything in every bite.
- The Herb Hack: To quickly chop mint and cilantro, bunch them into a tight ball and use a sharp chef's knife to slice through. Don't over-chop, or they will turn into a paste!
- Salt the Tomatoes: If you have an extra 5 minutes, salt your chopped tomatoes in a separate bowl and drain the excess juice before adding them to the salad. This prevents the salad from becoming "soupy" the next day.
Jamie Young says
Keep sharing your stories! Food is beyond just what's on the plate; it's nostalgia, it's a story, it's a promise, it's so much more. This Quinoa salad recipe sounds so delicious and I look forward to making it soon!
Terri Gilson says
Thanks, Jamie! I agree- food is so much more! 🙂 I hope you enjoy the salad!
Sean@Diversivore says
Wonderful, wonderful post Terri. I couldn't agree more with you. Food is about nourishment of course, but it is one of the deepest and most unifying aspects of our culture as well. Food connects us deeply, in the furthest recesses of memory. Food is a vessel that can instantly transport us to times, places, and events shared with people (many of whom, as you point out, we might have forgotten otherwise). I have a jump-to-recipe button too, and I have no plans to remove it. For me, they're at their most important when you're actually working in the kitchen, trying to make sure you can get to the meat of the recipe quickly without losing your place. But I consider myself a writer, and not just a recipe developer. Will everyone read my writing? No, certainly not. But I believe that those who choose to take away more than just a recipe - they participate in a cultural or personal experience. They connect - to me, to their friends and family, to something! And I think you might be right. This is our attempt to replicate the importance of those hand-written cards - to give gravitas and meaning to an innately impersonal and somewhat ephemeral medium. And I think that posts like this, like the recipe cards they replace, will hold meaning for a long time to come. Cheers.
Terri Gilson says
Thanks so much, Sean! Beautifully said! I started this blog because I wanted to write about food, as much as I wanted to create recipes. And I really do hope that we, as food bloggers and writers are filling that void and that people will remember us through our recipes in the same way we remember those that wrote upon those recipe cards. 🙂
Leanne | Crumb Top Baking says
Love quinoa and this is a great dish! But I really loved your take on the storey telling of food blogging! Sure, I love the recipes, but I enjoy getting to know the people behind the recipes, and food blogging makes that happen. Great post! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Terri Gilson says
Hi Leanne- thank you! Yes, I'm always so curious about people and who's behind the recipe as well. The 'about me' is the FIRST thing I look at when I go to a blog, even before the recipe 🙂
Denise of Urb’n’Spice says
I loved your story, Terri. Keep on doing what you are doing. I have been able to get to know so many fellow bloggers through their stories and even though I may never get the chance to meet any of them, I do feel a connection. The same with my personal recipe collection. I will keep the handwritten 3x5’s with the names of the contributor because every time I make the recipe, there is still a connection and feeling of nostalgia. Aside from that, your quinoa salad recipe sounds wonderful, fresh and flavorful. Thanks for sharing both your stories and your recipes.
Terri Gilson says
Thank you, Denise 🙂 I really do enjoy doing both the writing and the recipes and getting both from other bloggers as well! It's nice to feel connected to something bigger...
Cathy says
Thank you for reminding me of the importance of the personal connection with recipes, both on paper and online. I also appreciate your substitution of quinoa in this recipe which makes it gluten free!
Terri Gilson says
Thank you, Cathy! Yes, it made me very happy when I realized that the personal connection may have changed, but it's not gone 🙂
Sharon says
Thank you for this Terri! I feel the same. As someone who is about to add a 'jump to recipe' button, I wonder why it is so difficult to simply scroll through if reading the post is too tedious. Ironically, SEO dictates we churn out a minimum of 300 words to rank in google searches, so SOMEONE must be enjoying the reading. 😉 I too appreciate the heartfelt stories ( Redawna has made me cry too!!) and the memories that bloggers share. This salad looks delicious also!!
Terri Gilson says
Thanks, Sharon!That's great you are getting a jump to recipe button. It's considerate to give readers the option. as we get a variety of readers from a variety of sources. For a long time I didn't really know if anyone cared to read my writing, but I enjoyed doing it and it's my blog, so I kept doing it. But several people I know have told me they like the stories. So, I try to keep writing them. It's a lot more work, but it's more fulfilling and hopefully they'll feel more connected to something bigger and remember me 🙂