quinoa paella

Our family’s latest favorite. And very easy to make, as long as you have the main ingredient: the Quinoa. This recipe is based from the quinoa vegetable paella, but modified to involved some chicken (because my daughter looooves chicken). So, if you want the vegetarian version, click the previous link.

Ingredients

• 1 red onion, chopped
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• olive oil
• 1 cup of quinoa
• a pinch of saffron
• 1 tsp of ground paprika
• 1/2 tsps of cumin
• 1/2 can of 14oz diced tomatoes, drained
• 1/2 can of 14oz red kidney beans, drained
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 2 cups of chicken broth
• 4-5 chicken sausages, sliced
• 1 small zucchini, sliced
• 1 cup of peas
• salt

First, we need to wash the quinoa. Quinoa has a natural protective coating called saponin, and it has a bitter taste when cooked. So we need to get rid of this saponin. Similar to washing the grain of rice, you put the quinoa in a bowl. Rinse it thoroughly by stirring it by hand. Pour out the water and repeat the rinsing process several times. Aina usually does this part of the cooking 🙂

Then, saute the onion and garlic on olive oil in a deep skillet (non-stick is better) until the onion turned transparent. Then add the quinoa and saffron into the skillet. Stir for a 2-3 minutes. Then add paprika, cumin and salt (i used 2 tsps of salt, but add it sparringly, because you can always add the salt later on the plate), then stir evenly. Add diced tomatoes, kidney beans, bell pepper, sliced sausages and 1.5 cups of chicken broth into the skillet. Bring to boil and reduce heat to the lowest. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

It depends on the shape of the skillet, the more shallow and wide the skillet, the faster the broth dried out. If your skillet is deep, usually 1.5 cups is enough. But for shallow skillet, sometimes you need to pour the rest of the broth after 15 minutes. So make sure you check if it’s gotten dry.

After adding the broth (or not), spread the sliced zucchini on top of the quinoa and cover the skillet again. Cook for another 5 minutes, until the quinoa is done. Remove the cover, stir in the peas and cook uncovered for another 5 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed.