My-Sweet-Take-on-Tabbouleh Salad (Gluten-Free | GF)

My-Sweet-Take-on-Tabbouleh Salad (Gluten-Free | GF)

I have a special spot in my heart for quinoa. It's versatile, filling, & known for it's high protein content. One day I bought quinoa from Bulk Barn & on my way out of the mall, I walked by a Mediterranean restaurant at the food court called Villa Madina. I've had tabbouleh plenty of times, but as I glanced over the tabbouleh this time, the first thing that crossed my mind is that I could use quinoa as a substitute to make tabbouleh.

Since then I've been using quinoa to make tabbouleh salad instead of bulgur wheat which is used in traditional tabbouleh recipes. However, the other day while making tabbouleh, I was snacking on red grapes & I thought red grapes would taste really nice with this salad.

I loved the end result, so I thought I'd share the recipe. I must warn you though, I don't have exact measurements. It all depends on your liking - if you like a lot of lemon juice, onions, or salt, then go for it. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of the strong flavour of parsley, which is a bit odd considering that parsley is one of the main ingredients in tabbouleh. But that's exactly why I didn't add as much parsley as most people would & added more grapes instead.


Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of chicken broth
  - OR 1/3 Maggi chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1/2 cup of water
• 1/4 cup quinoa
• 1/2 English cucumber
• 2 tomatoes 
• 1/2 red onion 
• 40 seedless red grapes 
• handful of mint 
• 2 to 3 handfuls of flat-leaf parsley
• juice of 3/4 of a lemon 
• salt 
• ground black pepper 

Method:

1. Bring the chicken broth (or 1/3 chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1/2 cup of water) to a boil. Add the quinoa & let it cook for 20 minutes or till the quinoa absorbs all of the liquid & it is cooked properly. Once it is cooked, let it cool. If there is some liquid remaining & the quinoa is already cooked through, use a sieve to strain the excess liquid.
2. Cut the cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, grapes, mint, & parsley. I didn't dice everything into small pieces & I cut the grapes in half. 
3. Season with lemon juice, salt, & ground black pepper.

Chef's notes:

1. I prefer cooking quinoa in chicken broth (preferably homemade) as it adds a lot of flavour to the otherwise bland quinoa. Alternatively, you can cook 1/4 cup of quinoa in 1/2 cup of water. You can also try adding a pinch of salt to the water before adding the quinoa.
2. You can take out the seeds in the cucumber & tomatoes, but I was eating the salad right away, so I didn't mind leaving them in. If you plan on storing the salad, you might want to take out the seeds so that the salad doesn't get too watery.
3. Traditional recipes of tabbouleh include a bit of olive oil, but I skip it.

xoxo

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