One Skillet Mexican Quinoa Dinner

One thing I quickly realized when trying to add more vegetables and plants to our daily meals, was that this also meant more chopping, and slicing, and dicing when it was time to make dinner. And at the risk of sounding like a whiner, sometimes it just feels like too much work. On those days this Mexican quinoa skillet dinner can come to the rescue!

This quick dinner recipe can be made by mostly just opening cans and dumping them in a skillet. Sometimes I do a quick little chop of some green pepper to add if I have some around. And it’s nice to add a topping of fresh cilantro to this as well. But the main part of the recipe are these easy ingredients:

• One can of beans (I use pinto but other types of beans work too)
• One can of tomatoes w/chiles (but plain tomatoes can also be used)
• One can of corn (but I usually do a cup of frozen corn)
• One cup of dry quinoa
• One cup of vegetable broth (sometimes I’ll have homemade broth to use)
• Garlic (you can mince fresh garlic but I just do a squirt of garlic paste)

So after you’ve opened some cans, measured a bit of quinoa, and poured some broth over them, you just stir it up, add some seasonings, and let it bubble away on the stove. If I’m using my cast iron skillet that seems to run a little hotter, it only takes about 15 minutes for the liquid to be absorbed and for the quinoa to “burst”. In other skillets it takes closer to 25 minutes.

And then this recipe is ready to serve! This recipe freezes well too if you want to portion it out for single serve meals to use later.

If quinoa is new to you, this is an easy way to give it a try as the mexican flavors give this dish a spicy dimension to help you become familiar with this tiny grain. If you give it a try, I think you’ll like it. And you won’t have to spend a half an hour at the counter slicing and dicing either!