A Pomegranate Salad with potato & quinoa has never looked, or tasted so good! The simple combination of the fresh ingredients in this salad are a true winner. This salad will be popular amongst your family, at BBQs, or as a side dish at parties.
Pomegranate Salad
Pomegranate is such a simple, yet extraordinary addition to any salad. The bright red pop instantly transforms the salad, making it look juicy, fresh, and delicious! Not to mention that it is consider a superfood due to its high antioxidant content. Pomegranates are well known to help remove free radicals from your body, protect cells from damage, and reduce inflammation.
You can check out how to swiftly peel a pomegranate on my Instagram page here or on my Pinterest at the end of this blog post.
The Perfect Side Dish
You can eat this salad with almost anything! it is the perfect side dish, and any left overs can be saved for lunch the next day. My favourite meals to have this salad with are:
- Sweet Potato Falafel
- Vegan Lasagna (recipe coming soon)
- Tempeh Skewers (recipe coming soon)
- Vegan Shepherd Pie
Smashed Potatoes
You can cook your potatoes how you prefer for this salad. I love using this smashed potato method because it requires no additional oil or salt. Its incredibly easy, fuss free, and healthy! Smashing the potatoes and baking them creates an extra crispness. Of course you can choose to add salt and oil to them. However, once added to the salad and mixed in with the salad ingredients and dressing, its really not required.
Substitutes
Quinoa
I love adding quinoa salads because it is light, fluffy, and adds a subtle nutty texture. If quinoa is not available to you, you can substitute for rice instead.
Fresh Salad Ingredients
The main green base of this salad is parsley. It is slightly more time consuming to remove the parsley leaves and chop them. It is totally worth it though! The parsley is perfectly complemented by the pomegranate, Spanish onion, and red tomato. If parsley is not available, you can use finely chopped lettuce instead. I have made this salad before with finely chopped iceberg lettuce instead. I have also made it with finely chopped baby spinach. Both were delicious!
How To Peel Pomegranate
You can check out how to swiftly peel a pomegranate on my Instagram page here, or my Pinterest page below
Meal Prepping
I also make this salad as part of my weekly meal prepping. I like to combine it either with my vegan lasagna, or tempeh skewers. I make it as a Sunday night meal, and make enough for the next few nights for dinner as well. When I get home from work, I put the potatoes, and lasagna / tempeh skewers in the oven for 10 minutes before serving. It takes the dullness out of meal planning. The recipes for the vegan lasagna and tempeh skewers are coming soon!
Pomegranate Salad With Potato & Quinoa
Ingredients
- 6 medium white potatoes peeled or thoroughly washed with skins on
- 1½ cup of cooked quinoa
- 1 medium pomegranate peeled, use the pomegrante seeds
- 1 bunch of fresh parlsey leaves. About 2-3 cups worth
- 1 spring onion
- 1 red onion
- 1-2 large red tomatoes
Salad Dressing
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 fresh lemon, juiced
- 1 pinch of salt
Instructions
Smashed Potatoes
- Pre-heat oven to 180° or 350F
- Line a baking tray with baking paper
- Peel, or thoroughly wash your potatoes if keeping the skins on
- Slice the potatoes into aproximately 3cm sized pieces
- Evenly place the sliced potatoes on the baking tray
- Bake in the oven 20 minutes
- After 20 minutes, remove the baking tray of potatoes. Using a potato masher, smash the potatoes so they are squahed
- Add smashed potatoes back to the oven and bake for another 10-20 minutes. Make sure to keep your eyes on the potatoes after the 10 minutes mark so they don't burn
Quinoa
- Measure ½ cup of uncooked quinoa, and wash thoroughly with a sieve
- Add ½ cup of uncooked quinoa, and ⅔ cup of water to the rice cooker
- Cook quinoa on the brown rice setting
Salad
- Whilst the quinoa & potatoes are cooking, prepare the salad ingredients
- Peel the pomegranate, removing the pomegranate seeds
- Remove the parlsey leaves from the stem. Once all removed, chop the parsely into fine pieces
- Finely chop the spring onion. Use mostly the green parts only
- Finely chop the red onion
- Roughly chop the tomato into quarters or eigths, depending on the size of the tomato
- Add all ingredients to a large salad bowl (inlcuding the potatoes & quinoa)
- Toss ingredients and toss through the salad dressing right before serving
Salad Dressing
- In a small jar, mix lemon juice, salt and olive oil. Do not blend. Blending olive oil will make it bitter.
Andrea says
Such a nice salad! And thanks for showing me an easy way to peel pomegranate, such an amazing hack!
Simple Green Soul says
Hi Andrea, thank you for taking the time to comment! I’m glad you like it! You’re most welcome 🙂