What is quinoa and how do you pronounce it? It is pronounced Keen-wah – I said it wrong until I heard someone say it on the food network years ago. Technically quinoa is not a true grain. It is the seed of the Chenolodium or Goosefoot plant. It is often used as a grain or substituted for grains because of its cooking characteristics. Quinoa comes in a wide variety of colors – white, pink, brown, red and even black depending on the variety. White was the only color I had tried before buying the red. This was also my first time cooking it at home.

I bought about a cup of red quinoa from the bins at my local grocery store. The first thing I noticed was that it was like Easter grass – it freakin’ stuck to everything – the bag, my hands, the scoop, etc.

I let the quinoa sit in my pantry for a week or two because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to make with it – then I finally decided to just cook it and go from there.

Most quinoa sold commercially in North America has been processed to remove the bitter resin-like coating called “saponin”, but a good washing is still recommended before cooking.

Have you ever tried to wash Easter grass? Yeah, not an easy task. I put a handful into my fine mesh strainer and it took me a good 5 minutes to get the grain-like seeds out of the double layers of mesh. Note: I need a single layer fine mesh strainer if I’m going to continue to cook quinoa on a regular basis. After that fiasco, I had the brilliant idea of just soaking the quinoa in a measuring cup and then draining through thick paper towels – that worked fine, minus the quinoa holding on for dear life. It adhered to everything – the measuring cup, the rubber spatula, every layer of paper towel, my hand, my face – you think I’m kidding? I’m still finding the stuff in random places that make me go…huh?

I did manage to salvage most of the quinoa using the 5 second rule ;). I got it added to a pot of boiling water – 1 cup quinoa to 1 1/4 cup water seemed to do the trick. Some cooking instructions say add to boiling water, others say to soak it, bring to boil, and then lower heat like you would for rice. I added mine to the boiling water – let it boil for a few minutes and then turned the heat down and covered it for about 15 minutes.  As the quinoa cooks, the outer germ around each seed twists outward – forming a little white, spiral tail, which is attached to the kernel (It’s alive – ha!) The seed itself is pretty soft, but the tail adds some crunch – creating a great texture, especially for salads.

I cooked up a couple of chicken breast tenders with some olive oil, garlic gold and flat leaf parsley and then I created a dressing.

Dressing Ingredients – (2 Servings)
1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon Frozen Orange Juice Concentrate
1 Teaspoon Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 Teaspoon Sierra Nevada Porter Spicy Mustard
1/4 Teaspoon Honey
Ground Pepper – about 5 twists

I grabbed a bunch of spinach, added the warm chicken, goat cheese and 3-4 big spoonfuls of the red quinoa and then tossed in the dressing.

A cup of quinoa really makes a lot – similar to rice once you fluff it up with a fork. I put a container of leftover red quinoa in the fridge and the next day decided to make a different kind of salad for more lunch options.

I grabbed a white onion, flat leaf parsley, celery, carrot, and zucchini and started chopping while I cooked a small chicken breast.

I shredded the cooked chicken breast and then started on the mayo mix.

I used some light mayo, spicy brown mustard, salt, pepper, garlic gold nuggets and some lemon juice. I mixed up my chicken salad and then added several huge scoops of the red quinoa and mixed it some more. I then spooned the mixture into whole wheat pita halves.

The only thing that would have completed the pita sandwich would have been avocado. Now I know why my girlfriend Jess adds quinoa/chicken salad into her weekly menu planning – It’s delicious!

One last photo… because yes, it was that good!

Question: Have you ever tried cooking quinoa? Any tips, tricks or recipes you want to share?