The basic recipe below can be adapted to include many different vegetables. I always use fresh although I am going to try a baked beans baked quinoa recipe soon as the idea sounds so good.

Baked Quinoa – Basic Recipe

Baked Quinoa – Main ingredients

1 cup uncooked quinoa

2 cups water

Salt to taste

Ground pepper to taste

4 eggs

1 ½ cups milk – dairy, goats, rice, quinoa milk – you choose

To the main ingredients you can add fresh vegetables. My favourites are sweet peppers, chillies and tomatoes. But you can use asparagus, broccoli, beans, You can also spice the recipe up with fresh basil and coriander.

Baked Quinoa – Method

Turn your oven on to 350 – 370 degrees Farenheit. (330 F for Fan ovens)

Prepare a medium round baking tray with a light coating of oil.

In a saucepan boil the water and add the quinoa and salt. Simmer for twelve minutes.

Take off the heat and place your vegetables and spices in the quinoa mix. Allow to stand for 10 minutes.

While the quinoa mix is resting mix up the eggs with the milk and the ground pepper  until completely combined.

Put the quinoa and vegetable mix into the tray and pour over the egg mix evenly.

Bake for about 30 minutes taking care not to over brown the Quinoa Bake.

Let the Baked quinoa rest for 5 – 10 minutes until it can be sliced and served.

Baked Quinoa Recipe

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I am not afraid of trying out new things but I know many people are. I have a weekly email postbag asking how they should cook quinoa. Most seem to express a fear of doing something wrong and ruining their food. The best thing to do is think of how you cook any other seed, grain or legume and apply that to quinoa. By doing this you suddenly have a huge range of possible ways to eat quinoa that you can try out.

The beauty of this grain is that you can not go wrong with it as long as you follow some very simple rules. The main one of these is don’t let it boil dry when you cook it. You cook it by adding 1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water. You then bring it to the boil and simmer it for between 10 and 15 minutes. It is then ready to eat as it is. You can also then put it in quinoa recipes. Quinoa is a great mixer food. You can use it as the basis for salads or as an accompaniment to your dinner.

Be Prepared To Experiment

The great aspect of cooking any type of seed or grain is that you have room to experiment. You can boil them, fry them and eat them raw. They can be put into soups and casseroles. They can be added to salads to add extra fibre and nutrition to a bland meal. Once you have cooked quinoa 4 or 5 times you will begin to see that it can be put into all types of meals and recipes. One of my early experiments was to add pre cooked quinoa to my favourite cheese scone recipe. I reduced the amount of butter and cheese in the standard recipe and replaced these ingredients with quinoa. The result was delicious.

The Easiest Quinoa Recipe

By far the easiest quinoa recipe is a quinoa salad. You can pre cook the quinoa and cool it. Then you simply add your favourite chopped fresh vegetables. Almost anything will do but I enjoy adding chopped celery, grated carrot and chopped sweet pepper. Use extra virgin olive oil as a dressing and you have a delicious salad ready to serve in minutes.

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Sweet Quinoa Stock Recipe

Ingredients
Zest and juice from 1 Lime
Zest and Juice From 1/2 Lemon
2 Tablespoons runny honey
10 caraway seeds
2 cups water
1 cup rinsed quinoa
Serving suggestion – fresh raspberries and diced melon

Method
Blend the Lime, lemon, honey and caraway seeds together with a small amount of the water.
Add the remaining water and bring to the boil.
Add the quinoa and bring back to the boil.
Turn down the heat to simmer until all the stock is absorbed by the quinoa.
This should take about 12 minutes.
Serve the Sweet Quinoa with fresh raspberries and diced melon

More Quinoa Recipes HERE

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I have been cooking and eating Quinoa for the best part of four years now. I have written a book on the subject and numerous reports and articles on the subject. Despite this I am still finding new ways to include this super grain in my diet.

The thing to do is not to highlight quinoa as something esoteric and special. What you need to do is just include it into your daily cooking when there are suitable opportunities.

Just today my wonderful wife was on cooking duties and we were having honey and mushroom chicken casserole. The only problem was the sauce was way too runny. So I suggested that she throw in some quinoa to absorb the excess liquid. Now my wife is very patient and understanding with my quinoa obsession and duly put half a cup into the casserole. Sure enough 15 minutes later we had a delicious meal with all the excess sauce soaked up.

The point of this anecdote is to illustrate that as we become more familiar with seeds and grain it becomes simpler to add them to our favourite meals. There are so many hugely nutritious seeds and grains including Flax, Hemp, Millet, Amaranth, Pumpkin Seeds, Sesame Seeds and Sunflower Seeds.

As you include all these wonderful grains into your diet you will need to have a stock of them In the pantry. This means that when inspiration strikes, you have the ingredients at hand. Most seeds and grains have a good shelf life of up to 3 months. You will find you get through the packs once you get the wholegrain bug.

Other recipes that you can add quinoa and other grain to include soups, salads, stir fry dishes, home made granola bars, bread recipes and desserts. You just need to get into the habit and mindset of asking yourself what you could add to a meal to make it even more tasty and fortifying.

By consuming grains that have had minimal factory processing you will get the greatest nutritional benefit from them. They are becoming readily available on the high street so you can easily and cheaply get hold of a good range of seeds.

So instead of just looking up the latest quinoa recipes why not think about how you can add some to your existing recipes. You will naturally and organically find yourself eating more natural wholefoods which over time will radically change your health and digestion for the better.

Click Here For Full Information on the Quinoa Cookbook

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Some brands will already be pre washed and not need the rinsing process. If it needs rinsing you will see a light foam appear when you rinse it. You then bring the quinoa to the boil and then simmer it for 10 – 15 minutes. If you want it firm and crunchy then only boil it for ten minutes. If you want it soft and fluffy then cook it for fifteen minutes. After you have done this a few times you will get to know how you like it.

As well as boiling it in plain water you can use vegetable stock or meat stock to boil it in. This will infuse the quinoa with the stock flavour. Some people also add olive oil to the water. You can also add any herb or spice you want to experiment with. What ever you add will add this flavour to the grains you are cooking. This is good when you are using it as a plain meal accompaniment as it gives it a bit of flavour without overpowering it.

You can also cook quinoa in a microwave oven although this is no quicker than the standard method and it does take more watching than boiling.

If you are making a soup, risotto or a casserole then you do not need to prepare quinoa in this way. You can simply add it to the other ingredients and it will bulk up during the cooking process. You may need to add some more liquid because quinoa absorbs a lot of the moisture in the recipe. It will also slightly thicken the recipes which means you can reduce the amount of cornflower or other thickening agents you might be using. Your meals will feel much more satisfying and filling and you will feel fuller for longer because quinoa is a complex carbohydrate.

You can add the seeds into cakes, cookies and scone recipes. It has to be prepared using the boiling method described above. You can also make them into a breakfast style porridge and add fruit to give it a more interesting flavour.

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Quinoa grain is actually a seed. It originally came from south america. In the last 20 years it has been grown in many more countries. I’ve even grown some on my own plot here in the UK. The quinoa plant grows to about 6 foot in height and has thousands of these seeds on large long flower heads. I am about to harvest mine once I can think of a way of doing this. The seeds are covered with a soft “petal” and I’m not quite sure how you get all the seeds out easily.

To cook quinoa grain you first rinse it under a tap to get rid of the bitter tasting coating. Not all quinoa has this. Some shops are selling it pre rinsed. Then measure out one part quinoa to two parts of water. Put this in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 – 15  minutes. It is then ready to serve. To see this in action there is a video here >>> Cooking quinoa grain.

The cooked quinoa can be served as it is with other vegetables or meat. You can also stir fry it and make an excellent quinoa salad with it. If your quinoa tastes bitter then you didn’t rinse it enough. I was told by a nutritionist that warm water works better for some varieties.

Once you get going with using quinoa in your diet you will find that it can be included daily in your diet. It is very flexible and easy to use in the same way that rice is. The benefit of quinoa is that it is a lot better for you nutritionally. More info here >>> Quinoa Recipes.

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While I do know a great deal about quinoa I am not qualified or knowledgeable to know if this is true. If you know please comment below this post.

Having said all this I much prefer the texture of quinoa that has been boiled over quinoa cooked in a microwave oven. You can see the 2 main methods on the quinoa video page. Once you have cooked it you can add it to other foods in a quinoa salad or a stir fry dish.

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Cooking quinoa is still a bit of a mystery to many because most cooks have never even seen it, let alone know what to do with it. The best recipes are usually savoury. Quinoa goes great with salads, vegetables and main courses. It makes a very good base for a Mexican chilli meal or an Indian curry. I read recently of someone cooking quinoa in a microwave oven. It isn’t any faster but it is convenient.
The occasional quinoa recipe use sweet ingredients in dishes such as fruity porridge, or quinoa cookies. It is completely dreadful mixed with modern processed foods. Quinoa for some reason only seems to mix well with fresh and healthy ingredients which is all for the better. You can see that there is more than one type of quinoa recipe.

The most successful use that you will find for quinoa is in quinoa stir fry meals. The mild flavour of quinoa and its slightly crunchy and nutty texture really comes into its own with these types of meals. The best place to find these recipes is of course online. There are many good recipes there that will never make it into a recipe book because quinoa is so obscure. Just check that there are not too many weird ingredients. I came across a quinoa stir fry recipe that had 30 different ingredients – some of which I have never heard of.

You now know how to cook quinoa and that it is very good to experiment with in the kitchen. My own quinoa recipes have really developed out of trial and error over a few years. If one of my experiments didn’t work I would change it around next time.

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To stop the quinoa sticking to the pan, lightly spray the inside with cooking oil.
Rinse the quinoa in cold water and place in the rice cooker pot.
Use one parts quinoa to two parts water.
Put the pot into the rice cooker and cover with the lid.
Cook for about 20 minutes.
If your rice cooker has a “keep warm” setting you can leave the quinoa in the cooker until you are ready to serve it.

Cooking tip. You can substitute vegetable stock for the water. You can also mix in fresh sage or basil to the quinoa to add some bite to the flavour.

There are many more quinoa recipes in my quinoa cookbook here

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If you have no idea how to cook quinoa then you are not alone. There are many variations to cooking it and different brands can have slightly different cooking times. This has created some confusion for people wanting to cook quinoa but needing simple instructions. The first thing you always do is rinse your quinoa under a cold tap. This gets rid of any remaining bitter coating that the grains may have. You then need to precook the quinoa before including it in your recipe. You simple add one part quinoa to two parts water and bring to the boil. Then you simmer it for 12 – 15 minutes. If you are a bit unsure how to cook quinoa go for the shorter time the first time as you do not want to overcook it

When you are cooking quinoa it usually absorbs all the water during the simmering process. The grains become light and fluffy and the germ of the grain produces as small “tail”. The feel of cooked quinoa is a bit like rice but with a slight crunch. It is this “tail” that gives the pleasant crunchy feel and flavour. Before finishing you recipe you must prepare the other ingredients that are going to be included. You will find when you are cooking quinoa that it goes best with vegetables that cook quickly in a pan or wok

One of my favourite quinoa recipes is a Mexican stir fry dish that includes sweet peppers, one medium chilli pepper, fresh tomatoes, chopped celery, sliced courgette and mushroom. I usually add 10 freshly chopped Basil leaves for flavour. All I do is fry these ingredients in top quality olive oil with the cooked quinoa for 5 minutes and serve. The whole meal can be ready in twenty minutes and is nutritious and tasty. You can serve it as a complete dish on its own or as a base for meat or fish. This has become one of my favourite quinoa recipes because I can throw in ingredients that I have to hand and the quantities are not too important.

I discovered this particular quinoa recipe when I was looking to rustle up a quick meal and only had a few simple ingredients to hand. You can almost any mix of fresh vegetables and herbs in a quinoa stir fry and the end result will be excellent.
Do not be afraid to experiment with quinoa stir fry recipes. You will soon be creating a quinoa recipe of your own.

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