I’m living off refrigerator salads all summer, what about you? Oh, you don’t know what a refrigerator salad is? It’s a salad that holds up well to refrigeration (doesn’t go limp and soggy like lettuce), and a meal prepper’s best friend. During the summer months I love mixing up a big batch of refrigerator salads, like this Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad, to eat all week. Sometimes I eat them alone as a light entrée, sometimes I use them as a side dish, sometimes as a base for bowl meals. They’re versatile, delicious, and never go to waste in my house!
This Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad is basically a summer version of my Spanish Chickpeas and Rice. It’s a little lighter, brighter (no smokiness), and served cold. It’s perfect for this scorching heat!
Substitutions and Add-Ins
This salad is super versatile, so here are some other ingredients that would go well in this salad, in case you don’t like any that I’ve included, can’t get them for a decent price, or just happen to have some of these items on hand and need to use them up:
- Couscous or orzo in place of the quinoa
- Cucumber
- Tomatoes (diced or grape tomatoes cut in half)
- Feta
- Roasted Red Peppers
- Red Onion
- Top with a dollop of hummus
How to Serve Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad
I intended this dish to be a vegetarian/vegan main dish with a large serving size of 2 cups, but it could also be served as a side dish to any other meal (smaller serving size of about 1 cup). This would make a great base for a bowl meal (add grilled chicken or hard boiled egg), or could be stuffed into a pita as a sort of sandwich.
How Long Does This Salad Keep?
This Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad is very sturdy, so it’s good for about 4-5 days in the refrigerator (time may vary with refrigeration conditions). I haven’t tried freezing this one yet, but based on how well my Roasted Cauliflower and Quinoa Salad freezes, I think this one would also freeze well. I find frozen foods like this are usually best if eaten within three months.
Need some help getting juice out of your lemons? Here are 5 Tips for Juicing Lemons.
Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad
Servings 4 2 cups eachIngredients
- 1 cup quinoa ($1.20)
- 1 fresh lemon ($0.37)
- 1/4 cup olive oil ($0.48)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 1 tsp salt ($0.05)
- freshly cracked pepper ($0.05)
- 1 13oz. can quartered artichoke hearts* ($2.59)
- 1 red bell pepper ($1.00)
- 1 cup chopped fresh parsley ($0.35)
- 1 15oz. can chickpeas ($0.49)
Instructions
- Rinse the quinoa well in a fine wire mesh sieve. Place the rinsed quinoa in a pot with 1.75 cups water. Place a lid on the pot, turn the heat on to high, and allow the water to come to a boil. Once it reaches a full boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for 15 minutes (lid on).
- While the quinoa is cooking, prepare the lemon garlic dressing. Zest the lemon, then squeeze the juice (you'll need 1/4 to 1/3 cup juice). Add the lemon juice and 1 tsp of the zest to a bowl or jar along with the olive oil, minced garlic, salt, and some freshly cracked pepper (10-15 cranks of a pepper mill). Whisk the ingredients together or close the jar and shake until they are combined. Set the dressing aside.
- After the quinoa has cooked, spread it out into a casserole dish or other wide shallow dish and refrigerate uncovered for about 15 minutes to cool it down.
- While the quinoa is cooling, prepare the rest of the salad ingredients. Drain the artichoke hearts and roughly chop them into smaller pieces. Finely dice the red bell pepper. Roughly chop the parsley. Rinse and drain the chickpeas. Place the artichoke hearts, bell pepper, parsley, and chickpeas in a large bowl.
- Once the quinoa has cooled, add it to the bowl with the other salad ingredients. Toss gently to combine, then drizzle the lemon garlic dressing over top. Gently toss again until everything is coated in dressing. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to 4-5 days.
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Notes
Nutrition
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Keep scrolling to see the step by step photos below…
How to Make Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad – Step by Step Photos
Rinse 1 cup of quinoa well in a wire mesh sieve. Once rinsed, add it to a pot along with 1.75 cups water. Place a lid on pot and turn the heat on to high. Let the water come up to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low, and let it simmer for 15 minutes with the lid in place.
While the quinoa is cooking, prepare the lemon garlic dressing. Zest a lemon, then squeeze out the juice. You’ll need anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 cup juice.
Add 1 tsp of the lemon zest, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 tsp salt, and some freshly cracked pepper (10-15 cranks of a pepper mill) to the lemon juice. Whisk the ingredients together, or, if using a jar, shake until the ingredients are combined. Set the dressing aside.
After simmering for 15 minutes the quinoa should be tender and fluffy, an no liquid should remain in the pot.
Spread the quinoa out into any sort of shallow dish then place it in the refrigerator to cool for about 15 minutes. Spreading it out is key because that increases the surface area in contact with the cold air and allows any excess moisture to evaporate.
While the quinoa is cooling, prepare the rest of the ingredients for the salad. Drain and roughly chop one 13oz. can of quartered artichoke hearts. Finely dice one red bell pepper. Roughly chop about 1 cup of fresh parsley. Rinse and drain one 15oz. can of chickpeas. Place the artichoke hearts, bell pepper, parsley, and chickpeas in a large bowl.
Once the quinoa is cooled, add it to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients and gently toss to combine.
Pour the lemon garlic dressing over the salad and toss once more until everything is coated in dressing.
The Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad is ready to be eaten immediately or…
Or portion it out into containers for your meal prep and refrigerate up to 4-5 days.
So light and refreshing!
Made this tonight exactly following the recipe exactly. Ate for dinner tonight and served it over a bed of spinach. Absolutely delicious! Can’t wait to pack for my lunch tomorrow, going to add in some olives as well!
Happy to hear it Jes!
My husband helped me whip this up for dinner last night- so good and fresh and easy to make on a whim. I absolutely loved the combination of flavors. It tastes even better the next day when it’s cold and all the flavors have settled. Will definitely make again ❤
How many calories per serving?
Thanks for the request! I do get that request a lot, but unfortunately I don’t have a reliable source for the nutrition information. The calculators and databases that most bloggers and websites use to calculate the info can be extremely inaccurate, and for something that can so severely impact the health of people with health conditions, I just don’t feel comfortable publishing unreliable numbers. I prefer to leave it up to the reader to use the database or calculator they trust. I’m sorry and I wish accuracy were easier than shipping the food off to a lab for analysis!
Anyone try this with shrimp or salmon? I’ve had chicken for so many lunches lately, I am thinking about mixing it up a bit and wondered how this would pair with fish.
This was so good! I had quinoa but hesitated because I never seemed to be able to make it right. But this was so delicious. I threw in fresh garden/farm market veggies, blanched string beans, some chopped zucchini and cukes, really filling meal all by itself.
Letting the quinoa cool is key! Happy to hear about your garden additions as well.
I made this for lunch today, and it was fantastic!
Going to make this tonight and was thinking of adding thinly sliced kale instead of the parsley (I really don’t like parsley) to give it a bit of green. Thoughts? Will it be too tough? Maybe if I add it when the quinoa is hot and let it steam it a smidge?
It wouldn’t be problem at all! I’ve added spinach and it’s delicious.
This was so good! The chickpeas are such a great mate to the quinoa, I was surprised. I used red quinoa, an orange bell pepper, herb marinated choke hearts, half a shallot and about a quarter cup of feta and let it sit over night. I’m so excited to have a good salad recipe since I’m trying to cut soy out of my diet and I’m sure the kind you buy at the deli counter is loaded in it, as everything is. I love your site so much, I’ve found so many great recipes on here. That smoky potato soup is amazing.
I’m eating some as I type for lunch! I used red quinoa too, makes it so colorful.
Where do you shop to get such low prices?
So I happen to have all of the ingredients, I did add a bit of red onion and red pepper flakes which paired beautifully with grilled lime chicken. MOST DELISH!!
Oh that’s a great idea to add a bit of spice. Glad you liked it!
This is great!
I used quick-cooking farro in place of quinoa because that’s what I had on hand, and it was awesome. I was skeptical that there would be too much salt when I tasted the dressing on its own, but all mixed together it was the perfect amount of seasoning. I’ll be making this again just as described!
Delicious! Plan on making it again soon. Highly recommended.
Delicious and easy. Feta cheese really would’ve taken it to the next level – will add some next time.
So good! I made it for lunch today. I used mint instead of parsley and it paired very well with the other flavours.
Currently eating this dish for dinner—it’s delicious!! Very unique meal, I’ll definitely be adding it to my favorites list.
Just made it amd added the feta! Sooo good! Can’t wait to taste it after it sits in the fridge!
I made this last week and it is fabulous! Even better the next day after the flavors have had a chance to meld. A perfect light summer dinner salad.