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This easy Quinoa Salad is a favorite healthy option, packed with vegetables and herbs, and perfect for lunches, picnics, and as a side dish.

A white bowl filled with vibrant quinoa salad, featuring chickpeas, diced tomatoes, cucumber, red bell pepper, and fresh parsley, sits on a wooden surface with a blue and white striped cloth in the background.

What I Love About This Quinoa Salad

Some simple reasons I’m absolutely in love with this salad.

Ingredients are fresh, healthy, and flavorful.
The lemon olive oil dressing with garlic and cumin brings the flavors together deliciously.
It keeps in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
A perfect make-ahead salad for picnics, lunches, and road trips.

Much like the always popular Costco Quinoa Salad, this simple-to-make salad is filled with fresh cucumber, red bell pepper, chickpeas, and fresh parsley.

How Long Does it take to make this Quinoa Salad?

The short answer? As long as the quinoa takes to cook!

While the quinoa is cooking, prep the vegetables for the salad and combine the dressing ingredients. By that time, the quinoa is usually ready.

I like to cook the quinoa in the Instant Pot, which takes 1 minute plus time to come and release pressure. For me, it’s often completed within 15 to 20 minutes.

A wooden tray holds bowls of fresh spinach, chickpeas, and cooked quinoa, perfect ingredients for a vibrant quinoa salad, next to a red bell pepper, lemon, cucumber, and grape tomatoes on a white surface with a striped napkin.

Ingredients for Quinoa Salad

Gather these simple ingredients for this easy quinoa salad. Specific measurements and instructions are found in the recipe card below.

Quinoa: Use whatever variety of dry quinoa you have on hand. Uncooked quinoa
Cucumber: Persian cucumbers or English cucumbers work well in this recipe.
Chickpeas: Canned chickpeas make this salad easy; just be sure to rinse and drain them.
Vegetables: You will need a bell pepper (in your favorite color), fresh tomato, and baby spinach leaves, or your preferred leafy green.

For the dressing, combine olive oil, fresh lemon juice and zest, vinegar (like apple cider vinegar), along with a sweetener, either sugar or a natural sweetener like honey. Then, for a kick of flavor, add ground cumin, minced garlic, and season with salt and pepper.

How to Make Quinoa Salad

This simple, healthy summer salad recipe is easy to make:

Step One: Cook the quinoa

Begin by cooking the quinoa according to package instructions. If you have an Instant Pot or pressure cooker, it takes only a minute. See our Instant Pot Quinoa recipe to read more.

Once cooked, fluff with a fork and transfer to a large bowl. Add the drained and rinsed chickpeas.