EVERYDAY LENTIL AND QUINOA SALAD

Back when I worked out of the house, I used to try to pack a fairly nutritious lunch every day, but the healthiest foods don’t always travel well. Nothing will make you resort to eating out more than opening up your fresh and healthy salad to find wilted greens and limp veggies.

I work from home now, so it’s not that big of deal, but I still like lunches that hold up well, because even at home, I don’t always want to take the time to make something if I’m deep into a project or just plain lazy.

This easy salad fits the bill. It comes together pretty quickly, and you can make it and prep it into containers for a few days ahead of time so you can just grab and go. It’s also healthy, filling, and tasty, something that is hard to come by these days.

I’ve made many versions of this because it’s that kind of recipe — take what you have in the fridge and mix it up to see what you get. This is my perfected recipe, but feel free to tweak it to your liking. It starts with base of lentils and quinoa. From there, it’s some fresh veggies, herbs, and a delicious dressing made with Ava Jane’s Kitchen Avocado Oil and seasoned with Ava Jane’s Kitchen Everyday Blend seasoning. It’s a lighter blend that has the perfect amount of salt and pepper, with a hint of garlic and citrus.

When prepping your salad, you can use canned or dried lentils. While I almost always use canned beans over dried, I almost always cook lentils myself. They’re less mushy that way, and they don’t take long to cook. You can of course, skip that step to make it even easier. I’ve even used cooked quinoa I picked up at my Whole Foods salad bar before, so do whatever you have to make it easier on yourself.