How to cook quinoa?

How do you prepare quinoa?

When we, for our contractions, are confronted with a new and relatively unknown ingredient, we ask ourselves how we can prepare this the best way of course. Of course, it says on the packaging what we should do, but that is not always the way to give it the most tasteful result.

Moreover, there are loads of natural quinoa products like quinoa flower and quinoa flakes. So how do you prepare those?

It couldn’t do any harm to list all these preparations and applications 😉

Everything about preparing quinoa:

Cooking quinoa grains

This is the uncooked raw quinoa you can buy in almost any supermarket or natural food market you can find. You can serve it at the same way as rice, potatoes or couscous, but you can also use it for a tasty breakfast with some fresh fruit and vegetable yogurt. For every person, 75 grams is usually calculated, so 300 grams for full 4-person dinner with vegetables.

The- per me- best method and useful info can be seen in this video (in which I don’t pronounce the word ‘quinoa ’correctly myself, woehaha!)

Preparing Quinoa flakes

Quinoa flakes are crushed quinoa seeds. You can cook the flakes in water, at you same way you would as you would cook oatmeal. So, it is ideal for a gluten free breakfast. Super tasty with some vegetable yogurt and pieces of fresh fruit (bananas, strawberries, berries,..)

You can also use quinoa flakes to pan tofu and seitan. You simple make a mush of water (or soymilk) and some flower, revolves the seiten, tofu or vegetables in it and then take them through a plate of quinoa flakes. After that, bake it in a pan or in the oven until you have a gold brown crust.

Use Quinoa flour

Quinoa flour is perfectly suitable to be used as a bind or replacement of flour in baked bread. Also, here is the fact that flour is gluten free, again a pro (other possibilities are millet- and buckwheat flower). You use it in the same amount as other lower in normal receipts. Very easy!

Making puffed Quinoa

You can also buy puffed quinoa ready-to-be-used, but you can also do it yourself. However; I admit that my first tries were quite a disaster.

Puffed quinoa can be compared to puffed rice. Good crispy and airy. Especially my wife loves it and eats it regularly for breakfast.

The combination of puffed quinoa and chocolate is also very tasty. Puff the quinoa as written down here below, melt some fondant chocolate and stir the quinoa through it. Let it cool down a bit and make little spheres out of it. Let it cool down and there…tasty pralines for the tea or coffee!

How do you make puffed quinoa yourself?

  • the same as you would with cooking quinoa; rinse the quinoa a few hours beforehand with flowing cold water and let it leak till it is dry again.
  • Take a sauce pan with a thick bottom and heat a spoon full of sunflower oil on high fire. As soon as the oil is smoking you add the quinoa and place a lid over the pan.
  • Let the fire sit on the maximum and shove the pan around. You will hear the quinoa grains cracking and opening. Stay moving the pan.
  • Take the pan of the fire as soon as there isn’t any spattering to be heard. Your puffed quinoa is ready!

I admit that this action may need a few tries. It depends on the thickness of the bottom of your pan, what type of stove you use (gas is faster than electric), and if you made the oil hot enough. It takes some patience and handy hands. But then you really have something 😉

Good luck and enjoy your meal!

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