Warm Quinoa and Salmon Salad

A nourishing, gut friendly lunch or dinner recipe incorporating fresh salmon and quinoa, served warm. Perfect for the cooler months.

Eating healthy and nourishing your body from the inside out doesn’t have to be difficult.

This recipe takes only 25 minutes, and you can save leftovers for the following 2-3 days if you are time poor.

Incorporating fresh herbs into your meals is a great gut friendly way to add more flavour in without processed sauces and dressing.

By adding fresh herbs, this recipe totals five plant based foods per meal, helping you to reach 30+ plant based foods per week for long term gut microbial diversity.

Time: 25 minutes

Serves: 4

Warm Quinoa and Salmon Salad

Ingredients

• 1 red capsicum
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 salmon fillets
• 1 tsp dried mixed herbs for salmon
• 1 ⅓ cup (200g) sugar snap peas
• 4 cups boiling water
• 1 ⅓ cup (250g) cooked quinoa
• 2 handfuls fresh parsley
• 2 tbsp fresh chives 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. 
2. In the meantime, cut the peppers into strips. Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat and stir fry the pepper for 5 minutes.
3. Place the salmon on a tray covered with baking paper, season with spices and cook in the oven for 10 minutes.
4. Place sugar snaps in a colander and pour over the boiling water. Then add the sugar snaps and quinoa to the capsicum and heat up for 4 minutes on medium heat.
5. Chop parsley and chives and mix into the quinoa. Serve as a side with the salmon.

Health Benefits

Quinoa is a rich source of polysaccharides, which is a type of dietary fibre.

These polysaccharide compounds in quinoa have mucous protective properties in the gut by forming a mucous barrier. (1)

The intake of quinoa polysaccharides have also been shown to reduce the bacterial species Desulfovibrio which is associated with intestinal inflammation. (2)