Warm quinoa and avocado salad with chili-lime shrimp
This dish is as easy and delicious as it is colorful. The quinoa-avocado mix serves as a delicious base (certainly more interesting than rice!), the roasted sweet corn and cherry tomatoes serve as refreshing pops of flavor to cut through the creaminess, and chili-lime shrimp gives it a dimension of heat and tang.
It’s also highly adjustable; you could easily add more veggies if you’d like — bell peppers would work great. Also, if you’re not a fan of spice, feel free to skip the chili powder.
This dish is also good with just about any protein, but there's something delicious about the bounce of a perfectly-cooked shrimp to contrast the creaminess of the quinoa-avocado mix.
One piece of advice: try to eat this warm, if possible — it's just tastier that way. Enjoy!
Servings: 4
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
- 24 uncooked medium shrimp
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- Juice of one lime
- Salt and pepper
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 ripened avocados
- 1/2 cup of frozen sweet corn, or kernels from two ears of corn
- 1/2 onion, finely diced
- 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
- Lime wedges for garnish
Directions
- Peel and devein shrimp and place in a large resealable plastic bag. Add marinade ingredients (listed above), seal bag, and massage ingredients into shrimp. Refrigerate until ready to cook.
- Cook shrimp: In a large skillet, cook shrimp (with marinade) over medium-high, turning once, until pink, about 4 minutes.
- See how to cook fluffy quinoa.
- Add avocado and mix into quinoa until chunky, like guacamole.
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and place a rack in the middle of the oven. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- Spread the corn kernels evenly on the sheet, drizzle with olive oil, then add salt and pepper to taste. Roast for about 10 minutes.
- Add to quinoa mix. (Note: You can also do this on your stovetop: simply cook in a large skillet over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, or until slightly browned.)
- Add onion, cherry tomatoes and cilantro to quinoa mix.
- Arrange quinoa in bowls
- Top with shrimp and drizzle any remaining sauce over shrimp.
- Garnish with cilantro and lime wedge. Enjoy!
Nutrition information (per serving)
- Calories: 270
- Total fat: 14 g
- Saturated fat: 2 g
- Trans fat: 0 g
- Cholesterol: 37 mg
- Sodium: 10 mg
- Total carbohydrate: 32 g
- Dietary fiber: 7 g
- Sodium: 1 g
- Protein: 12 g