Greetings! I hope summer is treating everyone well, I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while…I’ve been SO busy lately! But get excited because I have tons of recipes to be posted, so stay tuned!
Anyways, let me introduce you to one of my favorite summer recipes: Grilled nectarine and pistachio quinoa salad. This dish combines the soft, sweet flavors of grilled nectarines with the crunchy, salty flavors of raw pistachios. (I’m getting hungry just thinking about this!) Mix that together with warm quinoa and fresh veggies drizzled in a lemon-dijon basil dressing, and you’ve got yourself the ultimate summer evening dish!
With 8 main ingredients, this dish is SUPER easy to make and can be cooked in about 30 minutes. All you have to do is cook the quinoa, sauté the nectarines followed by the zucchini, and make your dressing. See, its literally as easy as 1, 2, 3!
Step 1: Start by cooking the quinoa in half water half veggie broth. Need some quinoa cooking tips? Look here!
Step 2: While quinoa is cooking cut the nectarines (the same way as you would an apple slice), quarter the zucchini, and slice the basil. Brush the nectarines with olive oil and arrange them on a grill pan to caramelize. You want grill marks to show up on the sides of the fruit, so cook each side for about 2 minutes. When nectarines are done cooking, set them aside, add a little extra olive oil to the pan and sauté the zucchini until pieces become soft and translucent. This should take about 5-7 minutes. When this is done, remove zucchini pieces from heat and set aside.
Don’t forget to check on the profess of step 1! By now your quinoa should be done cooking (or close to it). When the quinoa is al dente, fluff with a form, remove from heat, set aside and cover with a lid.
Step 3: Last but not least, you will make the dressing. To do this, start by combining the dijon and lemon juice in a small bowl and stir with a fork or whisk both ingredients are combined. Very, very slowly (while constantly stirring dijon lemon mixture) pour olive oil into bowl in a smooth, steady stream. DO NOT FORGET TO STIR DIJON LEMON MIXTURE WHILE POURING OLIVE OIL INTO BOWL. I cannot tell you how important this is!! Stirring the ingredients already in the bowl while simultaneously pouring in the olive oil will allow ingredients to emulsify. Emulsify is a fancy word used to describe two ingredients that aren’t meant to blend together but will become “one” under the right conditions… sounds like a love story, right?
Anyways, if you start to notice that the olive oil isn’t playing nice with the dijon lemon mixture, stop pouring the olive oil and in the words of the late MJ “just beat it”. All jokes aside, stir your little heart out until ingredients start to combine. When they finally start to blend, continue stirring while you (more slowly this time) pour the rest olive oil into the bowl, pausing to stir ingredients as needed. When finished, add in basil and salt and pepper to taste.
You’re almost done! In a large bowl simply combine the cooked quinoa, grilled nectarines, and sautéed zucchini. Next, fold in the dressing so it is evenly dispersed throughout the quinoa. Top with chopped pistachios and left over basil and ENJOY!
[yumprint-recipe id=’23’]I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do! Comment below and let me know what you think! I’d love to hear from you!
