Back to the food!
Well, almost… I just want to say how much I love you guys. I’d like to write an entire warm-fuzzy post about all you blog friends, but I’ll keep it short and sweet and just say that I have the best Internet friends and the best in-person friends a girl could ask for and since I’m fat and happy on all the love in my life this past weekend, let’s lean out a little with something green.
Or purple. You can totally make it green if you want. My spinach just happens to be prettier than yours. Sorry I’m not sorry about that.
I also paid two bucks extra for the Red Heirloom Spinach at Trader Joe’s. Was it worth it? Yes because it’s beautiful and the beautiful things in life are sometimes worth a bit extra. Food included.
I call this Breakfast Salad because Red Heirloom Spinach Salad with Quinoa, Coconut, Almonds, & Pears in a Cinnamon Cider Dressing is just a mouthful. And yes, that was meant to be a pun. Mouthful… because you will want to take several mouthfuls… but also because it’s difficult to fit all of that in one title. Get it?
Anyway – that’s what’s going on in this bowl, all those ingredients, which each on their own is pretty simple and fine, but together the goodness just multiplies.
I also named it Breakfast Salad because, without the spinach, this would be a delicious breakfast and if I had been a bit smarter and a much better planner, I would have prefaced this salad recipe with a quinoa breakfast bowl.
Don’t worry, the quinoa breakfast bowl will still happen because how good does that sound? I can’t sit here and think about it and then not make it immediately. Like, I might do a test run for breakfast in the morning. And by “in the morning,” I mean this morning I ate it for breakfast because I’m writing this post ahead of time, so go ahead and feel free to ask how good it was. (Answer: Da Bomb.) Milky quinoa porridge with coconut, almonds, pears, and cinnamon. Imma eat that again.
The whole point is that, as of the time I wrote this, I had named the salad after a breakfast that I had yet to make and had only envisioned and imagined eating and drooling over. And now I have done those things and I’m here to tell you – this salad lives up to its namesake. Imma eat this again too.
Breakfast Salad
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 4 cups red or green spinach
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 1 pear cored and thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup sliced or chopped almonds
- 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
For the dressing:
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons honey
Instructions
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Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl.
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In a small bowl, whisk together all the dressing ingredients. Drizzle dressing over the salad and toss to coat.
Below is the coconut I used and I’m obsessed. It’s dehydrated coconut, so they are like tiny, thin, crisps.
