Quinoa, Pea and Black Bean Salad With Cumin Vinaigrette Recipe (2024)

This was a tasty dish easy to put together on a week night. For the dish to be flavorful to our taste I added 4 times the amount of cumin, doubled the garlic (minced to make life easy), twice the amount of lime juice and lime zest. Used cayenne pepper instead of a whole pepper as I did not have one on hand. To make this a main course with additional protein, I added shrimp.

Yum! Have made this twice, once with black beans from scratch and then with canned beans. Doubled garlic, used more lime juice and zest, and no buttermilk. Topped with an avocado and some pine nuts. Both times I used fresh peas. You can buy them shelled at Trader Joe. They are very perishable so use them right away. Found the beans from scratch were better. Use a pressure cooker to save time.

Replaced the peas with edamame beans (that’s what I had on hand in the freezer) and it worked well. Delicious recipe.

Made for Sarah at appointment,s event before Christmas. Didn’t have peas, it was very tasty.

Subbed plain yogurt for buttermilk. Used cumin powder. Doubled the dressing volume. Really nice, rave reviews. Was still quite good the day after.

I really liked this, including the buttermilk in the dressing, which I wondered about. I doubled the cumin and used a large clove of garlic, mindful of others' suggestions about blandness, and the result was delicious. (Also: used green beans, cut into small dice, because that's what I had.) But next time I might cut the quinoa in half in order to have a beanier version.

Should add red onion.

For those who thought the leftovers were flat, just double the dressing when you prepare it and save half to add the next day. We doubled the cumin and added corn, feta, and chopped kale, which were welcome additions.

this is a good basic recipe that has lots of room for variations: corn instead of black beans, double the garlic and lime juice and cumin, add the zest,. Go vegan and leave out the buttermilk...if want some sweet notes, add dried cranberries.

Delicious! Added lime zest. Added cayenne pepper instead of Serrano chili. Also added much more cumin.

Absolutely DELICIOUS. I made it without the Buttermilk. Didn't have Serano chile, so I added about a 1/4 tsp of Red Pepper Flakes to the pan with the toasting cumin seeds. I didn't have coriander seeds but had powder, and mixed that into the frying pan. Was sooooo good, there were no leftovers for lunch for the next day!

Question for NYT or anyone who has cooked this - would this be okay without the buttermilk? Could I just add more lemon?

Bland - need to up the spices and/or add fresh herbs

I used only one can of black beans but added a can of corn. Tasty and colourful.

Will definitely be making this again! I added an extra serrano pepper, lemon zest (forgot to zest the limes before I tossed the rinds out), feta, and some extra garlic, which was great! Like most of MRS's recipes, if you are from a non-white culture, you may want to be generous (or even double) all of the seasonings to ramp up the flavor.

Wonderful. In place of peas, I grated raw beets and marinated them in a bit of the dressing while the quinoa cooked. Great flavour, great colour.

I really liked this dressing. I ground the cumin and garlic together with a mortar and pestle. served on a bed of spinach.

Very nice salad. I followed suggestions about increasing the spice and used 3/4 teaspoon each cumin and coriander seeds toasted and ground. Instead of the optional serrano chili, I used 3/4 teaspoon smoked paprika.My personal preference when I make this again would be to use only 1/2 cup quinoa so that the quinoa to bean ration would be more even.