Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Quinoa for Breakfast

Breakfast is probably my favorite meal of the day. Well, apart from lunch and dinner. And snacks. Perhaps it's easier to just say I love all meals, but I'm a firm believer in breakfast.

Usually I make oatmeal on the stove top, using almond milk, cinnamon, vanilla or whatever else I find that looks good. I've used canned pumpkin, cocoa, peppermint extract and even Baileys in my oatmeal. Since I eat it almost every day I need to mix it up sometimes to stop it being boring.

The thought of using a grain other than oats for my breakfast has crossed my mind more than once. There are plenty of grains out there you can sub for oats, like millet, amaranth or quinoa. Since I recently went on a quinoa shopping spree (it was on sale!) I decided to experiment with breakfast quinoa to see if it was something worthy of making again. It was.


It looks a little weird because I used tricolor quinoa, but let me tell you, it was delicious and filling -- exactly what I'm looking for in a breakfast food. You could mix it with anything; I used chia seeds, ground flax, bananas, coconut and raisins. Because the chia and flax absorb liquid I added about another 1/4 cup of milk to the quinoa to stop it drying out. I'm trying to eat less sugar so I didn't use sweetener but it would be delicious with a touch of honey or maple syrup. Once you have the basic recipe down, you can mix and match with whatever toppings you want -- that's the beauty of the breakfast grain!


Breakfast Quinoa


1/4 cup quinoa
1/2 cup milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

Mix ingredients well in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the quinoa has absorbed all the liquid. Add toppings and more milk if you like, and enjoy!

No comments:

Post a Comment