How To Cook Quinoa In 3 Easy Steps

I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite new foods - quinoa. It's filling, healthy and full of protein that will keep your muscles strong and your stomach full. It's also one of these foods that you can add to almost anything. You can use quinoa as a side dish (instead of rice or pasta for example), mix it into salads to give them some crunch and nutty flavor or even add it to soups or enjoy it as a hot breakfast cereal.

Many recipes call for cooked quinoa, so let's briefly discuss how to cook quinoa. It's not very complicated and very much like cooking rice. For four servings, you need 1 cup of dry quinoa and 1 ¾ cup of water.

Start by rinsing your quinoa (unless the packaging states that it has been pre-rinsed). Since the kernels are very small, I use a mesh strainer to do this. Just give them a quick rinse under cool water and then let the remaining water drip off.

Pour 1 ¾ cup of water into a medium sized pot and bring the water to a boil. Add the cup of quinoa and stir.

Variations: Before you add the quinoa to the boiling water, you can add some flavoring agents. For example, if I'm making quinoa for a salad or as a side dish, I like to add a little chicken or vegetable bullion powder to the water. You could also use your favorite broth or stock instead of water as the cooking liquid.

Turn the heat down and allow the quinoa to simmer, uncovered for 12 minutes. At this point all the liquid should be absorbed and the quinoa seeds should be nice and tender. If there's liquid remaining in the pot, allow it to simmer for a few more minutes.

Take the pot off the heat and then use a fork to fluff the quinoa. It's now ready to server or use in recipes called for cooked quinoa. You can also allow it to cool, put it in a container with a lid and store it in your fridge for several days.

But what do you do with the cooked quinoa? You can serve it as is as a filling side dish, pretty much the way you would serve rice or couscous. You can also flavor the quinoa by cooking it in broth as mentioned above or by melting cheese into the hot mixture at the end.

I also like to use cooked and chilled quiona in a variety of salads. A quick and filling dish is to chop cucumbers, tomatoes, onion and black olives. Add them to a bowl along with some quiona and drizzle everything with Italian dressing. Mix and serve.