Roast tomato, sweet potato & quinoa salad with tahini dressing
My new favourite salad: red and white quinoa with tomatoes, sweet potato and red onions roasted with cumin, fennel and coriander. Ok, so my favourite changes weekly, but this is a super tasty and definitely one to add to your menu! The dressing is made with roast garlic, tahini and deglazed tomato juice from the roasting tray (see the swirls in the little bowl), to really pack in the flavour. It would also be nice to add some crunch by serving with toasted nuts, or feta if you want to add cheese - I had both!
Ingredients
Serves 4 as a main, or 6-8 as a side
250g baby plum tomatoes
2 large garlic cloves
1 small sweet potato, 1cm cubes
1 medium red onion, half moon slices
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
½ tsp ground coriander
250g quinoa
¼ tsp sea salt
A handful of parsley and/or coriander, chopped
Dressing
6 tbsp tahini
100ml water
¼ tsp sea salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Spread out the tomatoes and garlic on a roasting tray, drizzle with rapeseed or olive oil and add a pinch of salt, mix well.
Put the sweet potato and red onion on two halves of large tray, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with ½ tsp cumin seeds, ½ tsp fennel seeds and the coriander, plus a pinch of salt. Mix well and place all the vegetables in the oven for 15 minutes. Turn and put back in for another 5 minutes. The sweet potato and onion should be cooked by now, but the tomatoes will need about another 10-15 minutes - they should be starting to blacken.
While the vegetables are roasting, rinse the quinoa really well and then simmer in boiling water for 20 minutes. Drain and set aside.
Put the remaining cumin and fennel seeds in a frying pan and warm gently for about 1 minutes util you can smell their aroma, set aside.
Use the two roasted garlic cloves in the dressing - squeeze the soft clove out of the skin and mash in a small bowl. Next add the tahini and mix well. Deglaze the tomato tray with 6 tbsp of boiling water and mix into the tahini. Add an extra tablespoon of water if needed. Stir in the salt.
To serve, put the quinoa in a large bowl, gently stir in the vegetables, herbs, salt, then pour over the dressing and lastly sprinkle over the cumin and fennel seeds. If you’re not eating all the salad straight away, leave the dressing separate, so it stays fresher.
Tip
After roasting vegetables, I always deglaze the tray with a 2-3 tablespoons of boiling water to get extra flavour into my salad dressings, stocks and stews. Even if you don’t need that flavour now, it’s worth doing as you can freeze the liquid in an ice cube tray and add to another dish as an extra flavour boost. It also helps to clean your tray before washing up!