BUILDING MUSCLES ON a vegan diet can be tricky, but this dish is packed with protein thanks to the abundant amount of seeds, nuts and beans.

It sounds very fancy, it being a cashew and sesame quinoa salad after all, but it’s not.

Ingredients (for 2 people):

- 150g quinoa
- Vegetable stock cube
- 6 spring onions
- Half a cup of soya beans
- Half a cup of cashew nuts
- 50ml coconut or olive oil
- Dash of soya sauce
- Grated carrot
- Salt and pepper to taste

Method

• Add the quinoa to a saucepan with 350ml of water and the stock cube and bring to the boil.
• Cover and simmer for around 10 minutes until all the water is absorbed and the quinoa is soft.
• While that’s cooking, chop the onions and add the beans to the quinoa.
• Stir them through and remove this from the heat.
• Now add in the nuts, coconut oil, soy sauce, carrots, spring onions and salt and pepper.
• Toss it all together and serve.

Quinoa has long been branded a ‘super food’ as it contains far more protein and far less carbs than brown rice, which can be used instead of it.

This salad contains less than 400 calories, will provide you with around 20g of protein, around 35g of fat and slightly less than that amount of carbs.

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