Alright, I promise, this is my last quinoa entry… of the week! 
Seriously, I know I’ve been cooking with quinoa a lot lately. Well, it’s not that I suddenly got totally addicted to the seed, it’s just that, when I made a batch last week in prevision for my beet salad and my quinoa cakes, I sort of forgot that I was only cooking for one, so I made WAYYYY too much. And, me being me and not wanting to waste food, well, I had to plan a lot of my meals around this little *mistake*.
Not that I mind, to be honest: I happen to really love that little seed.
One thing that bugs me about quinoa, though, is that I find it never quite fills me up! I mean, this salad right here calls for a whole cup of cooked quinoa, and when I was done eating, I still felt hungry! I don’t know why that is… one would think that after eating such a large quantity of a rather calorie dense “grain”, which also happens to be a good source of complete protein, they would be extremely full, but for me, that’s never been the case.
The cakes seemed to fill me up a lot more, but I figure that’s probably more due to the breadcrumbs that was in them. If you’ve ever made breadcrumbs at home, you know that you need quite a few slices of bread to make one cup of breadcrumbs, like 4-6 easy, depending on the kind of bread that you are using.
So…
Anyone else finds that quinoa just never seems to fill them up?
Or is it just me?
INGREDIENTS
(Serves 1)
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 100g mushrooms, sliced
- 200g asparagus, cut into 1″ pieces
- 2 green onions, sliced
- 25g sundried tomatoes, chopped
- 15g goat cheese, crumbled
- 1 tsp pumpkin seeds
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp freshly cracked black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat a skillet coated with cooking spray over high heat. Cook your mushrooms until they are nice and golden on each side, about 2-3 minutes per side.
- Add asparagus, salt and pepper and continue cooking for a minute or two, then throw in green onions and sundried tomatoes. Give this another minute or two, depending on how tender you like your asparagus.
- Combine cooked quinoa and stir delicately until heated through.
- Transfer to serving plate and garnish with pumpkin seeds and goat cheese crumbles.
Quinoa on its own never fills me up as well. I usually mix it with beans, greens and my favourite dressing of mango, avocado, lemon and mustard. This aparagus variety looks very appetizing and I will certainly give it a go!
Mango, avocado, lemon and mustard… creative! I like! I shall keep that in mind for future quinoa recipes! Do you blend everything together in a food processor or do you leave chunks of fruit?
That looks beautiful, as usual
Quinoa on it’s own doesn’t usually fill me up either, but I have a couple recipes that mix it with beans and that always does an awesome job of keeping me full. This looks delicious even just as a side maybe 
I LOVE quinoa too – I purposely make a big batch to have leftovers readily available. I have a quinoa salad posted today – with mango, almonds, edamame and black beans so it does fill me up!
Your salad is gorgeous, Kristina! I have yet to try edamame… but I shall fix that soon, very soon!
Your recipe looks so tempting I may become a quinoa convert! I’ve just started exploring using it in different recipes, but as an addition to other grains and legumes, not as a stand-alone. Love your site!
Quinoa doesnt fill me up either, but your quinoa cake sure does! (love that recipe!) I’d love to guide Foodista readers to your site. I hope you could add this quinoa widget at the end of this post so we could add you in our list of food bloggers who blogged about quinoa recipes,Thanks!
Thanks Alisa! I’ve added the widget and will be exploring Foodista for sure. Looks like there’s a lot of interesting reads on there!
Thanks for the recipe! Do wish you didn’t bold every other word as it’s a little hard to read
Point well taken, thanks!
wow, this looks absolutely amazing. So vibrant and of course, it has cheese which always wins with me!
Always looking for new ways to make quinoa & farro. This looks good. Love your photos.
Thanks Diva!
I will absolutely be making this for dinner tonight! I’ve been meaning to experiment with quinoa for a while – can’t wait!
COOL! I sure hope you like it! Your feedback would be appreciated!
I just jumped on the quinoa bandwagon so I will most definitely make this soon!
Good to hear! Hope you like it… make sure to drop by and let me know how it turned out for you!
Isn’t quinoa amazing, seriously?