Finally a Greek salad recipe without the feta!
Howdy beauties!
As promised, I’m so excited to bring you this new recipe of a Greek salad that’s gluten-free and also 100% vegan as it doesn’t contain any feta! How can that even taste any good, you ask?
Well the dressing is SO DELICIOUS it doesn’t actually need it!
I used to eat LOADS of Greek salad as I always choose it in restaurants, but the feta (often made from cows milk) did my stomach and skin no favours.
Many of my personal training clients have also experienced this, when they followed generic diet programs in the past, that included Greek salads. These salads, although presenting themselves as ‘healthy’ were always loaded with feta.
And we all agreed that whenever we attempted to make it at home without the feta, it always tasted SO BORING!!! 😴
So I played around with dressing ingredients to ensure the salty taste of the feta wasn’t missed and then came up with this gorgeous Greek style salad, that also contains quinoa and organic chickpeas. So as well as being 100% dairy free, gluten free and vegan it’s also pretty damn filling!
The real transforming factor is the dressing, so you could just make some of this to drizzle over veggies or other salads, if you don’t fancy quinoa. If you do use quinoa and chickpeas however PLEASE REMEMBER TO SOAK THEM FIRST! This will ensure they are properly digested, so if you’re unable to soak them overnight then aim for a minimum of 4 hours.
I currently can’t get enough of this salad so I do hope you enjoy it as much as I do 😉 Gen x
- 2 cups organic quinoa (soaked and rinsed)
- 4 medium or 6 small chopped shallots
- 1 cup organic chickpeas (soaked and rinsed)
- Approx 15 pitted and chopped Kalamata olives (you can always add a few more!)
- 4 chopped organic spring onions
- Big handful chopped parsley
- 3 tbspns fresh lemon juice
- 3 tbspns organic dijon mustard
- 4 tbspns organic apple cider vinegar
- 2 tbspns dried oregano
- ¼ cup organic or high quality olive oil such as Pomora
- Pink Himalayan sea salt and black pepper to taste
- Rinse your quinoa and chickpeas separately.
- Add your quinoa and chopped shallots to either a saucepan or rice cooker, along with enough water to cover them.
- Cook until the quinoa is soft (about 15-20 minutes)
- While the quinoa is cooking, blend or mix all your dressing ingredients together until thoroughly combined and smooth. You can also use this time to chop the olives, spring onions and parsley.
- When the quinoa and shallots are cooked (all the water should have been absorbed) allow to cool slightly before adding the chickpeas, olives and spring onions. Mix well.
- Pour the dressing over, making sure it is evenly coated. You can always add more oregano if needed.
- Add the chopped parsley and mix well.
- Season to taste with the salt and pepper.
- Enjoy and see if you miss the feta!
- More info on the increbile Pomora olive oil (as well as how you can get a discount!) can be found here: https://ptgen.co.uk/my-healthy-christmas-gift-list/
