Chicken, spinach, and quinoa salad with olives

4
Points®
Total Time
18 min
Prep
15 min
Cook
3 min
Serves
4
Difficulty
Easy
Frozen, steam-in-the-bag quinoa makes this filling salad come together in less than 20 minutes! Plus, you can cook it right in its package so there will be one less pot to clean. Here, we used it as base for the salad and tossed it with chicken, spinach, tomatoes, and a combination of bold-tasting Mediterranean ingredients. We liked the earthy flavor of the spinach but if you would like to use a green with more of a peppery bite swap it for arugula. Since its delicious warm or chilled, you could double the recipe and serve the leftovers the next day for lunch.

Ingredients

Cooked quinoa

8 oz, 1 frozen package (about 1 1/4 cups)

Extra virgin olive oil

4 tsp

White wine vinegar

1 Tbsp

Water

1 Tbsp

Dijon mustard

1 tsp

Paprika

½ tsp, smoked

Table salt

½ tsp

Black pepper

¼ tsp

Shallot

½ medium, minced

Baby spinach

3 cup(s)

Cherry tomatoes

2 cup(s), (1 pint), halved

Cooked skinless boneless chicken breast

2 cup(s), chopped, diced

Celery

2 rib(s), medium, (thin stalks), thinly sliced

Olives

12 olive(s), medium, green variety, pitted and coarsely chopped

Instructions

  1. 1 Microwave quinoa according to package directions; drain well and cool.
  2. 2 Meanwhile, to make the dressing, whisk together oil, vinegar, water, mustard, paprika, salt, and pepper in large bowl. Whisk in shallot.
  3. 3 Add quinoa, spinach, tomatoes, chicken, celery, and olives to dressing; toss to coat.
  4. Serving size: 2 cups