Southwest Quinoa Salad

This Southwest Quinoa Salad is hearty, wholesome, and packed with familiar Southwestern flavors, including black beans, tomato, bell pepper, and an oil-free cilantro-lime dressing. Grain-free, gluten-free, vegan, and a delicious, versatile meal-prep main! Once your quinoa is cooked, it’ll just take 10 minutes to put all together!

Fresh and Vibrant Southwest Quinoa Salad

Here at PBOAB, we love quinoa salads. They’re hearty, healthy, flavorful, and super easy to customize. Plus, since quinoa is packed with fiber and contains all the essential amino acids, it makes for a complete protein, excellent for adding to meat-free meals. So, having shared a Vegan Lemon-Garlic Mediterranean quinoa salad and Tanzanian quinoa salad with grapefruit, now it’s the turn of this Southwest quinoa salad.

With ingredients including black beans, tomato, bell pepper, lime, and cilantro, this black bean quinoa salad is loaded with typical Southwestern flavors and ready to impress as a side or main at potlucks, picnics, BBQs, or even for a nutritious meal-prep meal.

Plus, since the zesty lime-cilantro dressing is oil free, this Southwest quinoa salad also cuts down on calories and fat found in many other recipes. Luckily, with the combination of fresh flavors, nutrients, and colors, this is a vegan quinoa salad that we happily return to time and time again! We’ve even included a list of further recipe add-ins and variations below for those who enjoy even more choice.

Looking for more ways to enjoy quinoa? You might enjoy this sweet potato quinoa bowl, quick and easy artichoke salad, quinoa tater tots, or even cinnamon-orange quinoa!

The Ingredients

Optional add-ins & Recipe Variations

There are several ways to boost the flavor and customize this Southwest quinoa salad, including:

• Garlic: Sauté minced garlic until fragrant, then cook with the quinoa to infuse it with extra flavor. 1-2 cloves or adjust to taste.
• Avocado: Add diced avocado to the Southwest quinoa salad just before serving (as it will brown while sitting). Check out this guide to avocado to learn more tips!
• Spice: Add a pinch of red pepper flakes or some finely chopped chili.
• Pickled ingredients: Pickled red onion or pickled jalapenos, finely chopped, are a great addition to this Southwest quinoa recipe in place of their fresh counterparts.
• Tofu: Marinated or lightly fried tofu (like this quick crispy pan-fried tofu) with taco seasoning (or something similar with a bit of heat) could work very well. Here’s a guide to tofu if you want to learn more about this protein-packed food! 
• Other vegetables: Corn (frozen, canned, or charred), spinach or kale (refer to this guide to kale), air fryer chickpeas, black olives, cucumber (English or Persian), roasted sweet potato, etc.
• Nuts/Seeds: Add extra crunch and nutrients with pepitas, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, cashews, etc.
• Salsa: A dollop or two of salsa (like this homemade oasted red salsa or creamy tomatillo avocado salsa verde) over the Southwest quinoa salad when serving is a simple way to add extra flavor.

How to Make Southwest Quinoa Salad?

First, you’ll need to cook the quinoa. Follow our instructions here in this complete guide to quinoa to learn how to cook it on the stove or in an Instant Pot. Make sure to rinse it first and allow it to thoroughly cool before moving on to the below steps.

Step 3: You can enjoy the Southwestern quinoa immediately, though it’s even better to leave it for 20-30 minutes chilling in the fridge to allow the flavors to meld. Taste and adjust any of the elements before serving!

FAQs

Top Recipe Tips and Notes

• To enhance the quinoa flavor: Lightly toast it in the pan/skillet until fragrant before cooking it.
• Using leftover cooked quinoa: You can refer to this post for how to cook quinoa on the stovetop or in an Instant Pot. It should be fully cooled before making this Southwest quinoa salad.
• Adjust the vegetables added: Based on what you have in your kitchen/pantry. This veggie quinoa is highly versatile.
• Leave the black bean quinoa salad to marinate: This will give the flavors a chance to meld for a better overall result.

How to Serve?

There are several ways to enjoy this Southwest quinoa salad, whether as an appetizer, side, or main.

• Create a Southwest quinoa bowl: With the addition of avocado slices, an optional dollop of salsa, and some additional protein (i.e., crispy salt and pepper tofu or bbq tempeh).
• Enjoy with vegan tacos: Either within or alongside them. Like these roasted veggie tacos, Chipotle lime street-style tacos, or cauliflower tacos.
• For scooping: Scoop with air fryer tortilla chips.
• Wraps: Enjoy in or alongside tofu lettuce wraps with peanut sauce (like these vegan black bean lettuce wraps) and this bean and rice burrito.

This Southwest quinoa salad is also a great option for taking to potlucks, BBQs, and other large gatherings. You could even enjoy it warm with a sprinkle of your favorite melty vegan cheese.

How to Store?

You can cook the quinoa up to 2 days in advance and store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Likewise, the vegetables can be chopped up to a day in advance.

Store any leftover Southwest quinoa salad in an airtight container in the fridge for 4-5 days.

You can also freeze the quinoa bean mixture (minus the fresh vegetables). Store in portions either in Ziplock/Stasher bags or airtight containers for 3-4 months. Allow it to thaw in the fridge overnight before adding the fresh veggies and seasoning, then mix and enjoy.