Banana Mayo Quinoa Salad

Inspired by the quinoa salad at Llama Inn, I wrote down the list of ingredients and recreated my own! There is actually a more complicated version of the real thing here, but I made some changes and used ingredients I could find at my favorite grocery store, Trader Joe’s.

For the quinoa I used the organic tricolor quinoa and cooked it in a rice cooker ahead of time. For added crunch, I fried the quinoa for about 5 mins, added diced red onions and parsley, and set that aside.

The star of the show has got to be the banana mayo. When I first tried the salad at Llama Inn, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed having the sweetness of the bananas in the dish. I played with the proportions a few times and I think the best combo is one and half tablespoon of mayo + half a banana + 1 teaspoon of whole grain Dijon mustard. Mush the banana and mix that all together as the dressing for your salad.

I included cherry tomatoes, shredded carrots, baked turkey bacon and toasted sunflower seeds as the ingredients to my salad, and toss them all together with the banana mayo mixture. Then I followed the original recipe and added the avocado later so the avocado remains in shape. The last step is to add the quinoa, diced red onions and parsley and fold it all together.

I love the crunch from the diced onions, turkey bacon and sunflower seeds and they go so well with the banana mayo!

Pro tip: If you’re looking to prepare this as a lunch for work, keep the quinoa, diced red onions and parsley in a separate container. Heat that up for 1 minute in the microwave before adding it to the other container with the banana mayo mixture and it taste freshly prepared!

quinoa, banana, avocado, turkey bacon and sunflower seeds