Veganuary Day 1 - Mexican Quinoa

Jan 01, 2025

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a nice celebration and are ready now to step into 2025 with new healthy and tasty recipes 💚

For the first day of the year, I wanted to share a super easy recipe that needs only one pan to prepare. Our one-pan Mexican Quinoa is nutritious, and the whole family can enjoy it.

This is probably my favorite quinoa recipe. Making a meal in less than 30 minutes that I know my whole family will eat with no complaints is not as easy as it sounds. My two kids make it quite challenging to find nutritious recipes that they enjoy. Still, I keep a few on rotation that I know work every time, like this broccoli pasta sauce or this Mexican Quinoa, which is one of them!

You'll only need one pan and a handful of ingredients for this recipe. Its combination of pantry ingredients, such as black beans, onion, corn, and quinoa, with fresh veggies like red peppers, tomatoes, avocado, and cilantro, works beautifully in this Mexican-style dish. Don't worry if quinoa is one of those grains that you undercook or overcook; this recipe has all the tips for you to master your quinoa cooking skills.

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Ingredients

Quinoa. For this recipe, we use three-colored quinoa, but regular quinoa works exactly the same way.
Black beans. We recommend getting black beans without added ingredients apart from salt and water. Sometimes, tinned beans come packed with unnecessary ingredients that are not good for you. You can also use dried black beans, but they'll need to be soaked overnight and boiled until tender.
Canned corn.
Red Pepper. Green or yellow pepper is also a fantastic option and will add color to the quinoa.
Onion. We like cooking with white onion, but red onion is also a great addition to this recipe.
Fresh tomato. You can also use tinned tomatoes, tomato sauce, or passata.
Spice mix. We use the same spice mix that we add to our fajitas: cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, and salt.
Avocado, fresh lime, and fresh cilantro for garnishing.

All these ingredients are easy to find in your local supermarket, so you can bring all those delicious Mexican flavors to your table with ingredients that you most probably already have or can get on your next shop run!

How to make One-Pan Mexican Quinoa

Once your fresh ingredients (onion, fresh tomato, and red pepper) have been finely chopped, you can make this recipe in four simple steps. This is one of those recipes I cook from start to finish while my husband runs the bath for my kids!

Step 1: Add olive oil to a pan big enough to feed your whole family. Stir fry finely chopped onions, peppers, and minced garlic.

Step 2: Add the chopped tomato and spices. Mix well and cook at medium heat for a few minutes. At this point, if you want to add some spice, you can add a teaspoon (or two) of chipotle paste. You can also add this at the end, as not everyone may want the Mexican quinoa spicy.

Step 3: Briefly rinse the quinoa. Now it's time to add the quinoa, corn, beans, and water or vegetable stock. Incorporate all these ingredients, mix well so everything is combined, and bring the water to a simmer.

Step 4: Cover the pan with a lid. If you don't have a large enough lid, which sometimes happens to us, place some tin foil securely on top, ensuring you leave a small gap for the steam to escape. You'll want to leave the quinoa cooking this way for about 15 minutes. After this, turn the heat off and leave to rest for five more minutes. Remove the tinfoil, and with two forks, fluff the quinoa. Your Mexican Quinoa is ready to be served now!