Healthy Quinoa Salad with Bacon, Roasted Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onions and Feta cheese, with French Vinaigrette salad dressing. You can also top the salad with pine nuts (optional but delicious!) This salad is so healthy and it's gluten free! Enjoy this salad packed with anti-oxidants (squash) and protein (quinoa)!
For this quinoa and butternut squash salad, you will need to roast peeled and cubed butternut squash in the oven until soft. You will also need to make caramelized onions, cook bacon, and cook some quinoa. After that, you just assemble the salad, top with crumbled Feta cheese, toasted pine nuts, add the French salad dressing – and it’s ready!
Recipe notes
- Use store-bought French Vinaigrette salad dressing. Want to make your own? Here is a great recipe: French Vinaigrette Salad Dressing.
- Caramelize onions according to my tutorial how to caramelize onions.
- Use peeled and cubed butternut squash. You can buy already cubed squash in the store or do it yourself. Roast squash in the oven until soft.
- Toast pine nuts slightly.
- Add the salad only right before serving.
- The salad can be refrigerated, without the dressing, for up to 5 days.
How to roast butternut squash
- Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line the baking sheet with aluminum foil and grease with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
- Butternut squash should be peeled and sliced into ¾ inch cubes. You will only need ½ of the medium size squash. Toss the cubed butternut squash in a large bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil and generously sprinkle with salt.
- Add cubed squash on the greased baking sheet.
- Roast for about 30 minutes, until soft.
- Flip the squash cubes over midway through baking.
- Let the squash cool slightly before adding to the salad.
How to cook quinoa
- For each 1 cup of uncooked quinoa, use 2 cups of water and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
- Add uncooked quinoa, salt and water to a large sauce pan. Bring to boil.
- Reduce to medium simmer and cook, covered, for about 15-20 minutes.
- Remove from heat, stir the quinoa with the spoon. Cover the pan with lid, and let the quinoa rest in the pan for about 10 minutes.
- Yield: 1 cup of uncooked quinoa yields 3 cups of cooked quinoa.
Other recipes with butternut squash
Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna
Butternut Squash and Spinach Salad with Pecans, Cranberries, Pomegranate
Butternut Squash Chili with Beef
Quinoa and Butternut Squash Salad with Bacon, Feta, and Pine Nuts
Ingredients
Instructions
How to roast butternut squash:
- Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line the baking sheet with aluminum foil and grease with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
- Peel the squash and slice it into ¾ inch cubes. You will only need ½ of the medium size squash. Toss the squash cubes in a large bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil and generously sprinkle with salt.
- Put butternut squash on the greased baking sheet and roast for about 30 minutes, until soft. Flip the squash cubes over midway through baking. Let it cool slightly before adding to the salad.
How to caramelize onions
Assemble the salad
- In a large bowl, combine cooked quinoa, roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions, chopped and cooked bacon, and mix with the dressing.
- Add the dressing only before serving, and add as much as you want to individual portions, as both quinoa and butternut squash tend to be on a dry side, and this dressing (when generously applied) fixes this beautifully!
- Top each individual serving with Feta cheese and toasted pine nuts (OPTIONAL).
- Note: This salad keeps very well refrigerated for up to a week, but only without dressing. Add the dressing only before serving.
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
This looks very nice! but I was wondering: what are the green leaves you sprinkle on it? parsley? coriander? mint?
thanks for sharing
This salad was amazing! To make it lower calorie, I used turkey bacon and Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian dressing. Only 30 calories per tsp. So simple to make!
Drop dead gorgeous salad, Julia! I love the caramelized onions, bacon and roasted butternut squash combination for this protein-rich quinoa salad. Perfection! Loving the photography, as always, my friend. 🙂 Thank you for sharing. Already pinned and will be making!
It's so fun to make new and exciting quinoa salads. Bacon sounds like a stellar addition.
Great salad -- could work as a main for a lunch, or light supper. So much good flavor in this, and it's gorgeous!
Yummm