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Quinoa, Pomegranate and Spinach Salad

This quinoa, pomegranate and spinach salad makes a colorful fall side salad or a light meal.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pomegranate share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 36 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 2
Prep10 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, 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 tastykitchen. 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. Spinach + pomegranatetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Spinach + quinoatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together79 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Quinoa + pomegranatetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Apple + blue cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Blue cheese + pecanstop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, quinoa, pomegranate, onion, blue cheese, pecans, olive):

  1. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  2. Cherrybetter flavor fit
  3. Pumpkinbetter flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, quinoa, pomegranate, onion, blue cheese, pecans, olive. 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).