Skip to main content

Quinoa Salad with Dried Cherries and Pistachios

Once you start using quinoa in salads, chances are you’ll get hooked; it is a no-fuss grain that is extremely forgiving to cook, yielding tender pearls full of nutty flavor. Use this recipe as a starting point, swapping in other fresh ingredients such as kale, corn and cilantro.

By williamssonoma · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Quinoa and pistachio share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 18 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4.

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By williamssonoma. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Quinoa + pistachiotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Olive + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Quinoa + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together457 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quinoa, vinegar, olive, pistachio, pepper):

  1. Corianderabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Basilabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against quinoa, vinegar, olive, pistachio, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).