Recipe: Roasted honey butternut, onion and red pepper quinoa salad

Serve with an oxidative white wine.

A vegan-friendly recipe.

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 cup (250ml) quinoa
2 cups (500ml) water or vegetable stock
400g butternut, peeled and cut into wedges
2 red peppers, halved and seeds discarded
2 onions, peeled and quartered
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp (30ml) honey
4 sprigs thyme
150g baby spinach, washed
1 lemon

Method:
Preheat oven to grill. Place halved peppers, skin side up, under hot grill and allow their skins to blacken. Remove from oven, place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow the peppers to steam for 15 minutes or until cool enough to handle. Peel away the blackened skins and slice peppers thinly. Set aside.

Bring water/stock to the boil and add quinoa. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for about 15-20 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat and set aside.

Reduce oven temperature to 180⁰ C. Place butternut wedges, onions, garlic and thyme onto a roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil and honey. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and roast in the oven for about 20-30 minutes or until butternut is soft and sticky and onions are slightly caramelised. Remove from oven and toss onions into quinoa, together with roasted peppers.

Place spinach onto a large platter and top with the butternut wedges and quinoa. Drizzle with a little extra olive oil and squeeze of lemon and serve.

Wine pairing:
Quinoa has a subtle nuttiness about it which makes it pretty versatile with wine. It’s the richness and sweetness of the other ingredients in the dish that provide the challenge – try an oxidative white wine which will have noticeable nutty and honeyed aromas and flavours to match those on the plate.

• Recipe supplied by Source Food – a Cape Town-based food agency that specializes in experiential marketing. They will create a recipe or meal to communicate your brand’s message.