Never eat ingredients you can’t pronounce. Except quinoa (No! It is ‘keen-waa’). 🍲

Commonly considered as world’s healthiest grain, quinoa has exceptional nutritional profile. It is the rare plant food with a complete protein profile, which has all the 9 essential amino acids. (Here ‘Essential’ means, our body can’t produce them on its own, we need to take these amino acids from food).

100 gm cooked quinoa provides:

calories	protein	carbohydrates	fats	fibre
120 kcal	4.4 gm	19.4 gm	1.9 gm	2.8gm

Besides being high in protein, quinoa is gluten free. People who have gluten intolerance, celiac disease and those who are health freaks and avoid gluten by choice, they can have quinoa without any restriction.

Apart from that, quinoa is high in fibre, contains Iron, magnesium, vitamin B2 and high in antioxidants.

Here are a few interesting ways to eat quinoa:

Quinoa and green peas stir-fry

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup green peas(fresh/frozen)
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 tomato
• 1 pinch turmeric
• 1 tea spoon chili powder
• Salt to taste

Directions:

• In a sauce pan, cook quinoa covering the lid for 15-20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a different pan saute onions. Add peas,tomatoes and quinoa and mix them altogether.
• Stir everything together adding turmeric, chili powder and salt.

One pot quinoa & broccoli

Ingredients:

• 2 cups lightly steamed broccoli
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• Salt to taste

Directions:

• Combine the broccoli and all ingredients in a pan and slightly toss them.
• Add your favorite seasoning black paper powder, olive oil, paprika and some lemon.

Herbed quinoa with lemon,mint and cilantro

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3-4 leaves of fresh mint, cilantro and thyme
• 1 small piece grated fresh ginger
• Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• Salt to taste

Directions:

• In a pan, toss quinoa with olive oil, fresh herbs, ginger, lemon juice and salt to taste.
• Serve warm or chilled.

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