The Mediterranean Meal Sarah Michelle Gellar Loves

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Sarah Michelle Gellar, the actress who once tackled supernatural baddies on a weekly basis as the star of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," may have long ago put down her wooden stake, but she's still all about keeping in shape. These days, she's focused on her family's health as well, and this means looking for recipes that can be prepared quickly and which contain plenty of protein and fiber. One such meal is her Mediterranean chicken quinoa salad, something she described to Today as "bright, refreshing and ... perfect for a weeknight dinner for a busy family like mine."

The base of the salad is quinoa, which Gellar admits can be bitter, but she advises that rinsing it can reduce the bitterness (and suggests swapping it out for farro if you really don't like the taste). The dish also contains plenty of vegetables, including bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers, as well as chickpeas, olives, and chicken thighs seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano. The dressing is a vinaigrette made with Dijon mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. And the salad is finished off with cilantro and feta cheese.

According to Gellar, this salad actually makes pretty good leftovers — since it doesn't contain lettuce, it won't get soggy like leftover green salad. She says any extra should last for up to three days and can be used to make pita sandwiches or stuffed peppers.

Sarah Michelle Gellar's interest in cooking is ongoing, as witnessed by the aforementioned salad recipe she shared on "The Today Show," but at one point it looked like she might be doing a deeper dive into the food business. While she's yet to join the list of celebrities opening restaurants, nor has she started selling her own line of celebrity booze, she did launch a brand of baking mixes back in 2015. Foodstirs, as the brand was known, was meant to appeal to people who like to post their creations on social media, but it was also intended to be kid-friendly. She wanted to expand the brand's offerings to include children's kitchen tools and crafting supplies as well, but unfortunately Foodstirs seems to have quietly closed up shop. While the website still exists, none of the products seem to be available anymore, and its social media appears to have gone dormant back in 2022.

Gellar's career as a cookbook author could be seen as more successful, however, since her 2017 cookbook, "Stirring Up Fun with Food: Over 115 Simple, Delicious Ways to Be Creative in the Kitchen," is still available from Amazon. (At the time of writing, it's priced at $16.34.) The focus here is again on kid-friendly foods that are fun to make and eat (perhaps adding it to the list of kids' cookbooks that parents also enjoy). While her Mediterranean chicken quinoa salad might not make the cut, the cookbook does have a recipe for Caesar salad on a stick. It also includes other fun projects like a necktie-shaped grilled cheese sandwich and vegetables cut to resemble a bouquet.