Quinoa Black Bean Salad with Peach Salsa

This quinoa black bean salad is a perfect summer lunch or dinner, featuring cumin-spiced black beans and a fresh peach salsa.

This quinoa black bean salad bowl has a little bit of something for everyone! It’s savory, a little spicy, and tangy sweet all at once. The savory black beans are the perfect compliment to a fresh peach salsa made of juice ripe peaches, lime and cilantro. Oh and it’s healthy too! Keep reading for our quinoa black bean salad recipe and a little more about how to cook quinoa…perfectly.

How to make quinoa

When we first wrote this post in 2011, quinoa was just coming onto the scene. Now, quinoa is everywhere! And for good reason. It’s chock full of health benefits: compared with other whole grains, it’s higher in protein, calcium, vitamin B, and iron. It’s naturally gluten free, which makes it easy to digest. It’s quick to cook (about 25 minutes total). And, it’s incredibly delicious! While some people complain about the bitter taste of quinoa, cooked properly it can be very tasty. And here are our top 10 Delicious Quinoa Recipes to prove it.

Cooking quinoa is simple, but it can be easy to mess up! Cook it too fast and it’s hard and crunchy, or overcook it and it’s mushy. Here are our two best methods for how to cook quinoa for this quinoa black bean salad:

1. Perfect Quinoa on the Stovetop This is our master recipe for cooking quinoa on the stovetop. It takes about 25 minutes, and it requires a little baby sitting to make sure the liquid is cooking out evenly, but it’s mostly hands off.
2. Instant Pot Quinoa (Pressure Cooker) If you have a pressure cooker, you can use it to make quinoa! It takes about 16 minutes and is almost totally hands off! This is the method we’ve started to use more often, since we have an Instant Pot. (Here’s the Instant Pot we use)

Making this quinoa black bean salad

This quinoa black bean salad is full of fresh seasonal ingredients and only requires a bit of stovetop cooking to prepare it. Outside of cooking the quinoa (above), it’s super simple. Simply chop up the ingredients for the fresh peach salsa, and then mix the black beans with a few seasonings. The best part, at least to me, was that while it only took about 30 minutes to prepare, it was totally delicious!  There’s a lot going on here – sweet peaches, spicy jalapenos, crunchy green onions, savory beans, fluffy quinoa…the mix of tastes and textures kept us coming back for more.

This quinoa black bean salad is a wonderful option for a quick summer weeknight meal: either as a vegetarian main dish or side salad. It would also be perfect for guests – pair it with a few other summer salads (see below) and maybe some frose? Let us know if you give it a try in the comments below!

Looking for salad recipes?

Outside of this zucchini ribbon salad recipe, here are a few favorite salad recipes:

• The BEST Kale Salad
• Strawberry Summer Salad
• Cajun Salad with Red Beans
• Nicoise Salad
• Mediterranean Salad with Chickpeas
• Summer Quinoa Salad
• Quinoa Bean Salad with Lemon
• Caribbean Black Bean Salad
• Radish Chopped Salad Recipe
• Cucumber Salad with Vinegar
• Classic Vegan Potato Salad
• Italian Vegan Pasta Salad
• Wedge Salad with Potato Chips
• Mediterranean Quinoa Salad
• Easy Bean Salad
• 40 Salad Recipes for People Who Hate Salads
• Greek Salad

This quinoa black bean salad recipe is…

Vegetarian, gluten-free, plant-based, vegan, and dairy-free.

Quinoa Black Bean Salad with Peach Salsa

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(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

5 from 2 reviews

• Author: a Couple Cooks
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Yield: 4 1x

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Ingredients

• 2 cups dry quinoa
• 1 recipe Fresh Peach Salsa
• 1 15-ounce can black beans
• 4 green onions
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• Fresh ground pepper

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Instructions

1. Cook the quinoa (or use our Instant Pot quinoa method): Place the quinoa in a saucepan with 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to very low. Cover the pot, and simmer where the water is just bubbling for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the water has been completely absorbed. (Check by pulling back the quinoa with a fork to see if water remains.) Turn off the heat and let sit covered to steam for about 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, and add salt to taste. Cover and leave warm in the pan until serving.
2. While the quinoa cooks, make the peach salsa.
3. Drain and rinse the beans. Thinly slice the green onion. In a bowl, stir together beans and onions with the olive oil, cumin, chili powder, kosher salt, and fresh ground pepper. Taste, then add more seasonings if desired.
4. To serve, dish the quinoa into bowls, then top with the black bean mixture and peach salsa.

• Category: Salad
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: American

Keywords: Quinoa black bean salad, Quinoa salad, Peach Salsa, Quinoa Bowl, Bowl meal, Quinoa Recipes,

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About the Authors

Sonja Overhiser

Cookbook Author and writer

Sonja Overhiser is author of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the best healthy cookbooks of 2018. She’s host of the food podcast Small Bites and founder of the food blog A Couple Cooks. Featured from the TODAY Show to Bon Appetit, Sonja seeks to inspire adventurous eating to make the world a better place one bite at a time.

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Alex Overhiser

Cookbook Author and photographer

Alex Overhiser is an acclaimed food photographer and author based in Indianapolis. He’s host of the food podcast Small Bites and founder of the recipe website A Couple Cooks. Featured from the TODAY Show to Bon Appetit, Alex is author of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the best vegetarian cookbooks by Epicurious.

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