Quinoa-Spinach Bake
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- Yield Serves 8 as a side dish
Ingredients
- Olive-oil cooking spray
- Breadcrumbs, for baking dish
- 1 pound spinach leaves, picked and washed
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, peeled and diced
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 tablespoon picked fresh thyme leaves
- 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red-pepper flakes
- 2 cups cooked quinoa (about 1 cup uncooked quinoa), made according to package directions
- 1 cup nonfat cottage cheese
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Directions
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8-by-8-inch glass or ceramic baking dish with olive-oil spray. Coat with breadcrumbs; set aside.
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Fill a large bowl with ice and water; set aside. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add spinach; blanch until bright green, about 10 seconds. Transfer to ice bath. When spinach is cold, remove from ice bath, squeeze out all water, and finely chop; set aside.
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Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan. Add onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and red-pepper flakes, and saute until translucent, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat; transfer to a medium bowl.
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Add spinach, quinoa, cottage cheese, pepper, and eggs to the onion mixture, and stir until well combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish, and place in the oven. Bake until set and edges are brown, 60 to 70 minutes. Slice, and serve warm or at room temperature.
I add to recipes like these that appear too plain. Even though there are red pepper flakes which I love, I would lattice the top with roasted veggies like carrots, cherry tomatoes, peppers, Portobello, onions and garlic. I like to see my vegetables so I don' t hide them and they are bite sized pieces! I would serve this with organic sour cream, or yogurt and add curry paste to the recipe! Then it would be fab :).
My family really enjoyed this recipe, though I modified it a bit. I used a little shredded sharp cheddar in place of the cottage cheese and just used salt and pepper to season. It has a pleasantly crunchy texture. We'll definitely make this easy, healthy recipe again.
Quinoa Spinach Bake
Frozen or Fresh Spinach
Pretty simple! I agree with most of the reviews on here, so I spiced mine up a little. Sriracha, salt, pepper, cloves of garlic were added to the quinoa so that it had more flavor and I took the idea of another reviewer and added some parmesan cheese to the mix. I did see that the mixture was going to be a little more dry than I would prefer so I added 4 eggs instead of two. I added panko and parmesan to the top for some texture and baked it half covered with foil and half off. Delicious!
I just made this recipe this week. It was a bit dry. I feel as if bacon would bring it around
This recipe was just okay. It reminded me of stuffing. I wouldn't say it's a main course. I added parmesan cheese to mine and cooked the quinoa in veggie broth. Would I make it again? No, probably not. It wasn't worth the effort.
I agree. Please add nutritional info for all recipes.
Would love to see the nutritional info for this recipe.
Sometimes I substitute half of the spinach for beet greens. Great way to use the beet tops so they don't go to waste!
This was tasty, wholesome and easy. My husband liked it and he's a meat and cheese kinda guy. I only baked it for 40 minutes because we were hungry so it wasn't as formed as it should have been, but I have a hard time believing that 2 eggs could have held all of that together anyway - I even held some quinoa out. I did add salt during the saute and while I was mixing everything together and it brightened everything up. Blanching only takes as long as it takes to boil water...no big deal!
This was good. It does take a little effort but you can make it easier. I cooked the quinoa in my rice cooker so that was super easy. Blanching the spinach takes time but isn't hard. You could use frozen chopped spinach that has been defrosted and squeezed really well. I added a bit of salt to the cooking onion mix and a pinch to the whole mixture before putting it in the oven and didn't find it bland at all. I will definitely make this again.
I like quinoa, and I like spinach, but this bake left me saying 'meh'. It's not really worth the effort it takes to make it - it's quite bland.
To veganize this recipe sub the egg with Ener-G egg replacer and sub tofu feta for the cottage cheese. Recipe for tofu feta can be found here: http://www.fatfreevegan.com/dressings/feta.shtml
http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/quinoa-spinach-bake-2/
nutritional info is here.
Could we have the nutritional content for this dish please?
Could we have the nutritional information for this dish, please?
You can skip the blanching step by sauteing the spinach with the onions and garlic
This was a hit with both my husband and my 13 month old! The spinach part was a bit labor-intensive for me, so I might try using frozen spinach when I'm in a rush. Otherwise, it gets a thumbs-up from the entire family.
This turned out really well, and is a good use for quinoa!
This turned out really delicious - even my husband liked it and he usually doesn't like foods that are overtly healthy. I made it with red quinoa because the white wasn't available, and it added a lot of color to the dish.