Enter your email & we’ll send it to your inbox. Plus, get great new recipes from us every week! By submitting this form, you consent to receive emails from Hurry the Food Up. Still, ‘make Thai quinoa salad while the sun shines’ goes the famous saying, so we will. It’s the perfect summery salad – light, tropical vibes with a refreshing kick. It also gave us the chance to explore ingredients we don’t often have a chance to work with, and we’ll give the wisdom of our experience below.
Thai quinoa salad – mango vs papaya
For this Thai quinoa salad you’ll need at least a mango or a papaya. It’s really up to you which you use – they both taste great. We suggest you pick whichever is easiest to find – or kinder on your wallet. In northern Germany that’s often the humble mango, though we’d love to hear in the comments below if that’s the same for you. Papaya does have some advantages to it – you can often buy it pre-cut. Naturally, this saves plenty of time with prepping – something we’ll always love! If you plump for mango, here’s a video showing a cool way to peel and prep it. Heading to your local Asian store might be your best bet. Lemongrass is another great ingredient that’s crucial Thai quinoa salad, and if you can’t find it at your local supermarket then an Asian or whole foods store will almost certainly stock it. Lemongrass needs to be beaten a little for it to really release it’s lovely flavours. We tried various ways of doing this, and the easiest simplest way is to use a wooden or metal spoon and give it a few hits. Here’s a video of Dave showing you how definitely not do it.
Thai quinoa salad – one of your ten a day
Remember, even though we all learnt we should be trying to eat five fruit or veg a day, recent research shows we should be trying to eat TEN a day. Not an easy feat necessarily, but if we’re going to try, we might as well enjoy it. Thai quinoa salad can be a good way to get a couple of portions down you (the sugar snap peas and fruits) – and if you have leftover papaya or mango you can just throw it into a smoothie or munch it down anyway. Obviously quinoa plays a big role here – it’s one of the only plants/non-animal products that contain all nine essential amino acids (making it a complete protein). As an added bonus it also contains ‘healthy fats’ and is gluten-free. Sounds good to us.
