Side dishes · Pasta & grain salads

Lemon quinoa salad

Name: Lemon quinoa salad
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 1 cup dry quinoa, cooked and cooled; 1 cucumber, diced; 1 1/4 cups grape tomatoes, halved; 1/2 small red onions, diced fine; a big handful fresh parsley, chopped; a small handful fresh mint, chopped; 3/4 cup feta cheese; 3 tbsp olive oil; juice of 1 lemon; 3/4 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper

The meal-prep salad that holds for days: quinoa with cucumber, tomato, herbs and feta in a lemon dressing. Cold, portable, and it improves on day two.

Time: 30 min (15 prep + 15 cook)
Servings: 6
Per serving: 240 kcal
Protein: 8 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

1 cup dry quinoa, cooked and cooled550 g
1 cucumber, diced250 g
1 1/4 cups grape tomatoes, halved200 g
1/2 small red onions, diced fine60 g
a big handful fresh parsley, chopped20 g
a small handful fresh mint, chopped8 g
3/4 cup feta cheese100 g

Dressing

3 tbsp olive oil40 g
juice of 1 lemon45 g
3/4 tsp salt4 g
1/2 tsp black pepper1 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Rinse the quinoa before cooking — the coating is bitter, and one rinse is the difference between nutty and soapy.
Cook, then spread it out to cool; warm quinoa turns cucumber limp.
Whisk the dressing and toss everything except the feta.
Fold the feta through last so it stays in crumbles. Better after an hour, still good on day three.

Why this score

moderately filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

14% of kcal

77% water

17 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1439 kcal goes into the pot, 1278 g of ingredients comes out as ~1250 g of food → 115 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 115
Protein: (14%); 4 g
Fat: (44%); 6 g
Carbohydrates: (42%); 12 g
of which sugar: 1 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 212 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

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Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.