Quinoa Veggie Fried Rice

Surely this happens to everyone in busy family life. You hold that inner conversation with yourself that you are eating terrible. Too much grab and go food and not enough fruits and veggies. Well, I do! I get on a healthy kick....I take a cheat day, get busy with kids activities and shuttling throughout the week...then we fall off the wagon....we resume old habits for convenience sake and then I recommit to getting us back on track.

When I'm really trying to up the veggie intake this has become my go to dish. The hubby and I love it and the kids actually eat it too with little grumbling. They don't exactly celebrate when they know this is on their dinner menu, I mean they have a natural love like most kids for carb and cheese loaded comfort food dishes! For what this packs in when it comes to vegetable servings and variety, I'm thrilled I have 5 out of 5 people that will pull up a chair for this dinner, clean their plate with no complaints, and that just makes me happy.

I originally found this recipe HERE but for our family, we definitely had to do some modifications after reviews from the kids. They don't do soft/soggy veggies, it's an automatic thumbs down for them so I have eliminated a few of the ingredients leaving the ones that hold up with a nice crunch to them. I also felt the ginger did nothing for the dish. I don't care for the taste of it and it was just one more ingredient to get that I don't generally have on hand so it was nixed. Just my personal opinion but take a look at the original recipe we got our inspiration from and check out their rendition of this dish. I consider mine more "family friendly"

The entire recipe will be at the bottom of this post but follow along for step by step instructions. I am by no means an exceptional cook! I like easy, tasty and healthy recipes for my family and love to share.

Shown above are all the ingredients I started with. 

       Quinoa

       Broccoli florets

       Matchstix carrots

       Bag of frozen peas

       Bag of frozen corn

       1 small onion

       Jar of minced garlic

       Soy Sauce

       **not shown but 2-3 eggs and some minced garlic

Start by dicing up your small onion and about half the bag of broccoli.

The beautiful part of this recipe is amounts are not critical. When I say half the bag, that's what I use but add as much or as little as you like. There is no magical measurement for the veggies.

Add a few tablespoons of oil to a pan. Add a heaping spoonful of minced garlic to the pan. I'm a cheater on all of this stuff. I've got my precut and cleaned bags of veggies, I'm also using the minced garlic that you find in the jar. I don't have the luxury of time so shortcuts matter in my house!

Add your diced onion and stir around until it starts to soften and becomes slightly translucent.

Next add your broccoli giving it a good stir so it's getting coated in the onion/garlic/oil mixture. Stir for just a few more minutes. I like to keep things moving in the pan so it's getting heated and cooked through but nothing is sitting getting soft. Again, my kids don't care for soft veggies (or soggy as they call it) so I'm aiming to keep the crunch while still heating it through.

Now add some shredded carrots. Nothing you need to measure, just whatever you like. I grabbed a handful. I eyeball things so it looks like a nice balanced color ratio. Again, just keep stirring the veggies every so often as they continue to heat through.

Now add some of your frozen corn and frozen peas. Stir these through the mixture for a few minutes.

Next we will be adding the cooked quinoa. Since the 5 o'clock hour can be the crazy hour for me in our house I will generally cook my quinoa earlier in the day so that it's ready to go. We will be adding 3 cups of cooked quinoa to this dish.
*1 cup of dry quinoa will make about 3 cups of fluffed up quinoa when cooked.

Now add the quinoa to your pan of vegetables. At this point I splash in a bit of soy to give the dish some flavor and stir through. I just go lightly though and everyone adds more to their bowl if they like. Better to start off needing a tad more then being drenched in sodium packed soy!

****I wasn't able to photo and include my kids' favorite part....the eggs! We didn't have any today but they love them in this dish. Take 2-3 eggs and pan fry them just like fried eggs and poke the yoke so it's cooked through. We don't want a runny center. Dice the eggs up and add to your veggie mixture.

My hubby needs something a tad more substantial so I always grill some teriyaki chicken when I make this as well and dice it up to add on top if desired. Quinoa packs a nice bit of protein in this dish but for the hungry fellas, it's well received adding some meat on top. You could even dice up some seasoned sirloin and use instead of chicken.

*The meat of course is optional as this dish can definitely stand up by itself.

**Need some heat? Add some Sriracha sauce.....or rooster sauce as we like to call it if you live in our house. Can't go wrong with that!

Serve and enjoy! Happy healthy eating!

Veggie Fried Quinoa

       

       3 cups cooked qunioa

       1 small onion

       minced garlic

       Broccoli florets

       Matchstix carrots - 

       Bag of frozen peas (about 1/2 cup give or take)

       bag of frozen corn (about 1/2 cup give or take)

       2-3 eggs - fried and diced

       Soy Sauce

       Sriracha Sauce

**optional diced chicken

Start by cooking the quinoa and setting aside

Soften the onion in the garlic and some oil in a pan

Add the broccoli and stir through

Next add the carrots and continue to stir

Add the frozen peas and corn, stir through

Mix in the cooked quinoa through the dish adding some soy

top with diced egg

Serve hot and add optional diced chicken for the extra hungry ones.

I usually serve some fruit on the side for my kids and this dish easily feeds my family of 5 with leftovers. So I'd say it'd safely feed 4-6 if you are topping with diced chicken and would serve 4 hungry appetites if you are keeping as a vegetarian dish.