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Feta & Pepper Quinoa Balls with Lemon & Dill Aïoli

A new way to eat healthy, protein-packed quinoa in this zesty salad with feta and a light mayonnaise dressing

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Why it works: Quinoa and feta cheese work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 68 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients

Contains: egg, 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 bbcgoodfood. 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 + feta cheesetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Olive + feta cheesetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quinoa, olive, pepper, pine, lemon, dill, mint):

  1. Chickpeabetter flavor fit
  2. Beansbetter flavor fit
  3. Walnutbetter flavor fit
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quinoa, olive, pepper, pine, lemon, dill, mint. 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).