Fall Vegetable Salad Recipe

I know salads in autumn aren’t most people’s first choice, and I originally had this fall vegetable salad recipe tucked away in my recipe bank for a potential Recipe a Day May post next year. But, when I was choosing my recipes for this month, this one seemed perfect. This fall vegetable salad recipe is almost exclusively carbohydrates. And people don’t typically think of salads as carbs.  

But as I discussed in my ‘Are Carbs Bad for You?’ post, there are several different types of carbs. And especially when it comes to vegan foods, your protein sources are also primarily carbohydrates. Most legumes are only 10-15% protein and about 80% carbohydrates. In this recipe, the quinoa is 70% carbohydrates then equal parts fat and protein, yet you’ll find it listed on almost every list of plant based protein sources.  

I think this recipe is great for autumn because it contains seasonal vegetables and seasoning, a good range of starches and fibre, but the cooked quinoa and roasted vegetables still mean it’s primarily a warmer dish rather than a traditional cold summer salad.  

Nutritional Information  

Each serving of this recipe contains 16g of protein and 20g of fibre. This recipe is also a source of omega 3 because I opted for walnut oil in the dressing.  

Vegetables in a similar colour family are typically high in the same vitamins and minerals, and because this recipe has a range of orange vegetables and greens, it contains an extremely wide range of vitamins and minerals, with the full recommended daily amount of several micronutrients. And fresh ingredients aside, because nutritional yeast is so heavily fortified, that covers a huge range too, including vitamins like B12 that are harder to get on a vegan diet.  

This recipe contains the full 100% of the recommended daily amount of each of the following: 

• B1 
• B2 
• B3 
• B6 
• Vitamin A 
• Vitamin K 
• Folate 

Plus 57% of your daily vitamin E, 80% of your daily magnesium, 50% of your daily zinc and 75% of your daily potassium. 

And each serving contains 6.3mg of iron. 

Reheat and Storage 

This dish is best served fresh, with the cooked ingredients still warm. It cannot be reheated, but if you wish to meal prep or eat your leftovers cold, it will keep in the fridge for up to three days.  

Fall Vegetable Salad Recipe 

Easy, filling warm salad full of seasonal vegetables, balanced and loaded with nutrients. 

This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, nut free and soy free.  

5 from 2 votes

Print

Fall Vegetable Salad Recipe

Easy, filling warm salad full of seasonal vegetables, balanced and loaded with nutrients.

Course Main Course, Salad

Cuisine British

Keyword Fall Vegetable Salad

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Total Time 55 minutes

Servings 2

Calories 610 kcal

Ingredients

Cooked Vegetables

• ½ large butternut squash cubed
• 2 medium parsnips chopped
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• Drizzle olive or sunflower oil
• Generous amount of black pepper
• 1 tsp chilli powder

Raw Ingredients

• 50 g kale
• 80 g spinach
• 1 pepper diced
• 2 small carrots roughly chopped

Quinoa

• 100 g dried quinoa
• 300 ml vegetable stock

Dressing

• 2 tbsp walnut oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic roughly chopped
• 1 heaped tbsp BBQ Nutritional Yeast

Instructions

Prep the vegetables for roasting

1. Preheat oven to 190°c.
2. Add chopped parsnips and butternut squash to a baking tray (you may need two). Drizzle your parsnips in the oil then add the chilli powder and drizzle over the maple syrup. Shake the tray to distribute the oil/ maple syrup. For this recipe, I prefer doing it this way rather than evenly coating them in a bowl first as I think the jammy texture is nicer if there are some sweeter/ spicier bites.
3. Place in the centre of the preheated oven for 20 minutes, remove and shake/ turn the parsnips then roast for a further 15-20 minutes until cooked, jammy and slightly crisp.

Cook the quinoa

1. Rinse your quinoa, add to a pan on medium heat and lightly toast it for 1-2 minutes. Add the vegetable stock, bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes.
2. Remove from the heat and let it sit, covered for 10 more minutes.
3. Fluff with a fork.

Mix the dressing and remaining ingredients

1. While the vegetables and quinoa are cooking, mix together all of the dressing ingredients other than the nutritional yeast in a small pot. Add all of the remaining raw ingredients to your salad bowl and toss in the dressing. Once the cooked ingredients are ready, add them to the bowl and toss again. Sprinkle with the nutritional yeast before serving.

Serve and enjoy

Do you guys like the sound of transitional recipes like this or do the colder months mean nothing but comfort food in your house?

Until next time,

Sophie

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