Healthy Mid-week Recipe - Grilled Quinoa Cobb Salad with Pancetta

The Zero Point soup might finally be paying off! Down a few pounds! Yeay me!!

Lest the celebration start and food slacker habits take back over, it's Healthy Mid-week Recipe time! 

Quinoa is everywhere and it's very trendy. It's an ancient grain and it adapts well to a variety of preparations. Salads are the most common, but you can use it to make breakfast porridge, veggie burgers, and lots more. Use it instead of rice with stir fries or in burritos. Wonder food! I am not a shill for the quinoa industry.

This salad includes grilled veggies, for extra flavor and well, because, summer. You could skip the pancetta and eggs and make it vegetarian and vegan respectively. But when you're being so virtuous, why not pork products???

Mangia!

Grilled Quinoa Cobb Salad with Pancetta

Adapted from Bon Appetit

Decorative versus Jackson Pollock plating

2 cups quinoa

1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more

1/2 cup olive oil, plus more

2 teaspoons thyme leaves

1 garlic clove, minced

6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Freshly ground black pepper

2 bunches scallions

2 pints cherry tomatoes

2 avocados, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 cup mint leaves

1 cup Italian parsley leaves

3 hard boiled eggs, chopped

4 oz. pancetta, chopped

1/2 cup chopped toasted pistachios

Flaky sea salt

Bring quinoa, 1 tsp. kosher salt, and 4 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until quinoa is tender, 8–10 minutes. Remove pan from heat and let sit 15 minutes. Fluff quinoa with a fork; transfer to a large bowl.

Meanwhile, whisk oil, lemon juice, thyme and garlic in a small bowl.  While quinoa is cooking, fry pancetta over medium to medium high heat until fat is rendered and crispy, about 5 to 6 minutes. Set aside on paper towel-lined plate to drain.

Drizzle ½ of dressing over warm quinoa and toss to coat; season with salt and pepper. Let cool.

Prepare a grill or stove top grill pan for medium-high heat. Grill scallions and tomatoes in a grill basket, turning occasionally, until charred in spots and tomatoes begin to split, 6–8 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and slice scallions into 1" pieces.

Toss the parsley and mint leaves with 1/2 of the remaining dressing.

Spoon quinoa onto a platter and top with scallions, tomatoes, avocado, eggs, parsley, mint, pancetta and pistachios. You may do this decoratively or go full Jackson Pollock on it. Drizzle with remaining dressing and sprinkle with sea salt.