Chicken and Quinoa Superbowl with Chimichurri Dressing

Serves 4

 

Lola is well-known for her whole foods approach to healthy eating.
On her food philosophy – 'Just eat real food, I think food is here to nourish us but also to share with the people you love"
On her favourite recipe – 'I'm all about smoothies". It's smoothies every breaky time for me; I'm making this acai one at the moment which I love"
On her favourite ingredient – 'The one ingredient I can't live without is extra Virgin olive oil – I use it in my hair, I use it on my face, I have one in the kitchen, I put it in my smoothies"
On wholefoods: 'When it comes to doing wholefoods right I think bring it back to basics, the simpler the better. You want to know what you're eating."
On what it means to have a healthy diet: 'If you're not happy, it's really hard to be healthy"

Lola shows us how to recreate her favourite recipes at home, as demonstrated on the new Electrolux Masterpiece Bronze Collection™ in the Electrolux Taste Theatre at Taste of Melbourne.

Ingredients
200g (1 cup) quinoa, rinsed
2 x 200g chicken breast fillets, cut into thin strips
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
Small handful of flat-leaf parsley, finley chopped
155 g (1 cup) almonds, toasted, plus extra to serve
130 g (1 cup) dried cranberries, plus extra to serve
Big handful of baby spinach
1 avocado, diced

Chimichurri dressing:
30 g (1 cup) chopped flat-leaf parsley

½ teaspoon chopped fresh oregano leaves (or dried)
3 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon

Method

Bring 500ml (2 cups) of water to the boil, add the quinoa and simmer for about 8 – 12 minutes until it has tripled in size and started to sprout little tails. Then rinse and set aside to cool.
Put the chicken strips in a bowl, add your olive oil, garlic and parsley, and toss to make sure the chicken is evenly coated.
Heat a grill pan until hot, then cook the chicken strips for 3 – 4 minutes on each side until golden. Once they're ready, set aside.
To assemble the salad, add the almonds, cranberries, baby spinach and avo to the cooled quinoa in a serving dish, then give it a good mix. Add the grilled chicken and toss lightly then set aside.
To whip up the dressing, you can pop everything into a Food Processor and blitz for 20 seconds.

Electrolux tip: The Masterpiece Collection Immersion Blender comes with a mini chopper attachment which is great to make salad dressings. Place all chimichurri ingredients in the mini chopper and blitz.