Grayce’s Copycat Yard House Red Quinoa Salad Bowl

Published on May 1, 2022

Yard House made this video of their “Red Quinoa Salad Bowl” in 2016. They have since discontinued serving this salad… to Grayce’s dismay! So she, being the capable and adventurous cook that she is, decided she would make it herself. The salad ingredients were easy to duplicate. Unfortunately, the dressing for it, “Blood Orange Olive Oil Vinaigrette”, doesn’t appear to be published anywhere. But there are many recipes for blood orange vinaigrettes online to give you ideas.

Blood oranges are seasonal, December through April, and at this time most of the ones in the grocery stores in this area are very old and are drying up. I was fortunate to find some fresh ones to experiment with. The different varieties of blood oranges have lighter and darker flesh inside which will result in varying shades of pink to a pinkish brown color. I don’t recommend the very dark ones because they can be bitter. After trying Cara Cara navel oranges, I felt like any kind of sweet orange would be a good option for this recipe.


Grayce’s Copycat Yard House Red Quinoa Salad Bowl

For two 5 cup salads.

Ingredients

Adjust the amounts to your preferences.

Instructions

To roast beets, scrub them and when they are dry, rub them all over with avocado oil and sprinkle them with salt. Wrap each one in foil, place them a baking sheet and bake in a 400° oven 45 minutes to 1 hour or until tender. When cool enough to handle, peel them and cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Drizzle the pieces of kale with 1 teaspoon olive oil and massage the oil into the leaves with your fingers. This is so they will be tender.

If you have purchased a whole pomegranate, this video will show you how to open it.

Toss all the ingredients together. Divide into 2 large bowls. Drizzle each salad with half of the Orange Olive Oil Vinaigrette (recipe below).






Orange Olive Oil Vinaigrette

Divide this between the two salads.

Ingredients

Instructions

Zesting as apposed to grating will avoid getting the white pith. Rather than a zester, use a microplane to zest the orange so you end up with small pieces.

Place all ingredients in a jar and shake until well blended.


These are the Moro blood orange (dark maroon flesh, more bitter), Tarocco blood orange, (light flesh, sweetest of blood oranges, and Cara Cara (light and sweet) navel orange.