Chickpea Quinoa Pilaf from Veganomicon
September 27, 2010
We love this recipe because it’s a great staple and you can serve it alone or with just about any veggie and it’s delicious. Our favorite way to eat this is topped with collard greens or bok choy. Sometimes we make twice or one and a half the recipe to make sure we can have it for a few meals. It’s also pretty quick to whip up. We make our chickpeas at home, but you can also just use canned chickpeas. This recipe is from Veganomicon, one of our recommended cookbooks. We made this with red quinoa, but it’s just as tasty with the yellow/white quinoa.
Here’s the recipe:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, crushed (we use 1/2 tablespoon of ground corriander instead)
Several pinches of fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon tomato paste (you can keep this in the fridge or freezer so you don’t waste a whole can)
1 cup quinoa
2 cups cooked or 1 15oz can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
2 cups vegetable broth
In a small stockpot over medium heat, saute the onions in olive oil for about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for about 2 more minutes. Add the tomato paste, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper; saute for another minute. Add the quinoa, saute another 2 minutes.
Add the chickpeas and broth, cover and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, lower heat to very low, cover and simmer for about 18 minutes or until the quinoa has absorbed the water, stir occassionally. Fluff with fork and serve!
A few tips – we use 1/2 tablespoon of ground coriander instead of crushing the seeds, because it’s what we have in our spice cabinet. You can keep tomato paste in the freezer after you open a can so you don’t waste the whole can when you only need 1 tablespoon. Lastly, we have made this with water when we didn’t feel like preparing vegetable broth (we make it from a low sodium powder), and it tastes just fine! Enjoy this the next time you cook greens, they will be delicious on top of this!
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