One Pan Mexican Quinoa

One Pan Mexican Quinoa is inspired by Mexican Rice and everyone in the family loved it even more. Well, I thought I was developing a completely new recipe when I had the idea of substituting quinoa for rice. I just wondered if there was anything like this on other blogs and searched it at pinterest. To my surprise, there were hundreds of recipes with this name. Gosh, I wasn’t expecting that many! Then I decided to learn about the traditional way of making it.

Almost all one pan Mexican Quinoa recipes have black beans, corn and cilantro. I wasn’t planning to use beans before seeing all those wonderful looking recipes. But I was just hooked with the idea, so I wanted to stick to that common way of cooking Mexican quinoa. I adapted the recipe from My Wife Makes. Unlike the recipes I saw at pinterest, mine uses red quinoa. I’ve used red quinoa in two recipes before;  Cheesy Zucchini Quinoa Casserole and Feta Quinoa Zucchini Fritters. I love its color, so I am more likely to use red when I cook something with quinoa.

This gluten free and vegan One Pan Mexican Quinoa is very easy to make and it’s full of healthy ingredients, so I was the happiest mom when our 23-month-old Göktürk asked for the second bowl and half of the third bowl. He already loves quinoa, but I think this one has become his favorite. He enjoyed the leftovers even cold the next day. It looks like our Turkish Bulgur Salad Kisir, but much flavorful and more nutritious. I will absolutely be making it often.

Who doesn’t love one pan dishes? Just throw everything into the same pan and don’t bother washing lots of dishes. No mess in the kitchen. And if the dish has a high nutritional value, it is even better. This One Pan Mexican Quinoa is of that kind. Black beans, corn and quinoa make it a wonderfully healthy dish. The spices and fresh cilantro are the bonus in the recipe. So if you like healthy one pan dishes as much I do, you should definitely give this one a try.

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One Pan Mexican Quinoa

An easy, quick, flavorful and healthy quinoa recipe.

• Author: zerrin
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: 25 minutes
• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Yield: 6 1x

Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 sweet green peppers of your choice, chopped
• 1 small red chili pepper, chopped
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/4 cup water or vegetable broth
• 1 can (15 ounce) black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup diced tomatoes, with juice
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried mint
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions

1. Heat olive oil in a pano ver medium high heat. Add the garlic and peppers and saute for a minute.
2. Stir in the quinoa, water, beans, tomatoes, corn, cumin, dried mint, black pepper and salt. Bring to a boil and then let it simmer.
3. Cover the pan and cook for 20 minutes over the lowest heat until there is no liquid in the pan.
4. Remove from heat, stir in chopped cilantro and lime juice. Taste and make adjustments if needed.
5. Serve hot or at room temperature.