I freely admit it: I’m having a love affair with quinoa.
That perfect little grain — so easy to make, so versatile, so useful for protein intake! I’ve started making a huge batch on the weekend and using it for meals throughout the week. All of these “recipes” take less than five minutes from start to finish.
Mac & Cheese, Quinoa-style
I take quinoa and melt a slice of havarti (or any other cheese) over the top, then mix to form a yummy, comfort-food quinoa-and-cheese. Sometimes I add broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms, or sliced up veggie hot dogs. Sometimes I mix in a tiny bit of spicy dijon mustard. There’s nothing you can’t do with this dish, and it hits the same emotional notes as mac-and-cheese.
Stir-fried Quinoa
Tried this one for the first time last night. I used a butter (or olive oil) in a pan and heated the quinoa with garlic, ginger, flax seeds (or sesame seeds!), red bell peppers, and soy sauce. Cracked an egg in and fried it all up, quick and tasty! I’m looking forward to experimenting with more veggies.
PB & M Quinoa
This has been a great breakfast or post-workout meal. Add some peanut butter and a tiny bit of maple syrup to quinoa. Just heat, stir, and eat! Bananas make an awesome addition, and I imagine you could use honey or agave instead of maple syrup. I’m considering mixing in some granola for added crunch.
Your turn! Hit me with your quick-and-easy quinoa concoctions, please!
Here via my LJ friendsfriends:
I find the red variety of quinoa in particular makes a great curry (add curry paste or powder to the stock you're cooking the quinoa in as you're cooking it) – and you can add all manner of vegetables to it. Mind you, not so useful if you're precooking it… probably you could concoct a spicy marinade for it though.
Someone I know who likes quinoa as a breakfast food adds pecans and raisins instead of peanut butter and syrup/honey, but the effect is still the same.
Oh, excellent idea about the curry paste/powder — I've got a bunch of red quinoa and I definitely want to try that! It sounds delicious. Mmmm.
Thanks for the ideas! I love quinoa, but don't eat much of it because I often can figure out what to do with it. These are nice and simple, and so right up my alley.
Let me know if you come up with any tasty variations!!
Cool! I bought quinoa because of a recipe I wanted to make, but now I can't find the recipe. Yours will definitely get added to my list!
I'm sure you'll come up with very cool stuff. When you do, you must share!!! (Also, those awesome lemons you gave me got used in my quinoa summer salad. They were so juicy!!!)
I recently discovered quinoa, too! I was delighted to find I can cook it in a rice cooker. I find it helps to add a couple of tablespoons more water than I would for rice.
Oh, I hadn't thought to use a rice cooker for it — what a great idea!
[…] my last quinoa post, my friend Erin described a quinoa-based version of Tabouleh that she makes. I happened to have […]