Vegetarian doesn’t mean boring, and this Roasted Vegetable Quinoa proves it. There are some bright and fresh flavors in this dish, and its great served warm, room temperature, or cold. Its a perfect potluck dish as it makes a hefty batch (10 cups), but if that’s too much, you can easily halve the recipe.
There is a bit of prep involved to make it, but its worth the effort, and it makes a lot. So whether you’re making it for a group, or to simply have for lunch or a dinner side dish for the week, its a great healthy dish that’s easy to prep.
I chose to go with a simple trio of vegetables to make it sweet and simple. I love the flavor of butternut squash, so I went with that. The sweetness of the onions and the red peppers are a great compliment, but you can sub with almost any veggie of your choice.
Something I did differently, is cook the quinoa in vegetable broth. I normally use water, but the broth definitely heightened the flavor, so I totally recommend using it. The kind people at Campbell’s sent me some of their Campbell’s No Salt Added Ready to Use Vegetable Broth (Gluten-Free) to use in a recipe, and it worked perfectly for this.
The final mix ins of the lemon zest, lemon juice and feta cheese make it extra delicious, but if you’d like to make this dish vegan, you can easily omit the feta cheese. I also used a TruRoots Organic Quinoa Duo, but regular quinoa will do as well.
I hope you give this a try next time you’re wanting to make a quinoa dish. Its a great option for the vegetarians or meat eaters in your life.
- 2 cups dry quinoa (rinse first and drain)
- 4 cups Campbell’s No Salt Added Ready to Use Vegetable Broth (1 carton)
- 2 medium onions, chopped into small cubes
- ½ of 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped into small cubes
- 1 red pepper, diced, also cut into the same sized cubes
- 2 Tbsp oil (I used avocado oil)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp rosemary (dried) or 1 Tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
- 1 cup feta cheese
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.
- First, rinse and drain your quinoa. Combine in a medium sized pot with the vegetable broth over medium/high heat. With the lid on, when it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low/medium and continue to simmer with the lid on. Quinoa should be cooked in about 15 minutes. All the broth with be absorbed and it will be fluffy. Remove from heat.
- Meanwhile, chop up your veggies and place in an oven safe dish. Drizzle with the oil, add the salt, pepper, rosemary and toss until coated.
- Place the roasted veggies in the oven and cook for approx 30 minutes, tossing halfway through the cooking time. When veggies are slightly browned and fork tender, they are ready.
- In a large bowl, add the cooked quinoa and roasted vegetables. Then add in the lemon juice and lemon zest. Once its had a change to cool a little (10 minutes) fold in the feta cheese.
- Serve warm, or put in the fridge to cool to serve cold. Leftovers are great cold, or reheated.