Skip to main content

Mexican Quinoa (instant pot)



Alrighty, so where I live (Long Island) we went through a pretty long phase where getting meat was tricky. By that I mean, everything but steak was not easy to find for a while. However, I had zero problem getting veggies, especially because we are imperfect foods customers (you should look them up, great company! If you want a referral code or have any questions let me know!)

Even if you can get meat, it's nice to mix things up every now and then! It's better on your budget, and it has an environmental impact too :) Plus, it helps you plan for longer spans of time with meal planning. We usually try to have at least one vegetarian meal a week anyways, but right now we have one or two vegetarian meals, then a meal with meat, then another couple vegetarian meals etc. just to spread out the meat that we have. So, we've been experimenting with a lot of vegetarian meals. This is one of my favorites we've done.

It is an instant pot meal-so if you don't have an instant pot..obviously the recipe won't work the same way :) BUT I think you could sauté the veggies, and then cook the quinoa with all of the seasonings and the tomatoes in it and then add it all together (theoretically).

If you do have an instant pot-you're set! Follow the recipe :)

I really really enjoyed this one. It was so easy, and pretty fast, plus it used a lot of things we already had in the house. With a lot of mexican bake things that I've tried (especially the vegetarian ones) I feel like I need to add cheese or it's not that great-this one had enough flavor that I didn't even realize the recipe never called for cheese. So good. Of course, you can always add cheese if you want to, but for this one I'd say it's definitely not needed.

If you have leftovers it heats up well OR you should be able to freeze it and pull it out some other time.

A couple quick substitution things-I didn't have celery so I didn't use celery. I also didn't have a long red chili so I just ignored that as well. I own coriander seeds but they're whole and I didn't feel like grinding them so, you guessed it, I once again just ignored this.

Tinned tomatoes, I think it wanted crushed tomatoes but all I had was diced canned tomatoes-worked just fine :)

For the jalapeño slices..I just had regular jalapeños so I just cut up one instead of doing a pickled one. BUT apparently you can find pickled jalapeños at the store, and they're super convenient because they store well and you can just pull one out whenever you need it.

Lastly, cilantro. Cilantro is a staple at our house, we use it a TON! If you are not someone who uses cilantro often, it is one that it is important to store correctly. When we get a bunch of cilantro we trim the stems (give them a fresh cut like you would flowers), then you put them in a glass of cold water in the fridge. If you are able to put a plastic bag loosely around the leaves that's ideal. If stored properly you can keep cilantro like this for about 2 weeks, no joke.

Oh! And, it tells you to soak your quinoa ahead of time?? I had never heard of this, but it was a new recipe so I did what it asked. I don't have a sieve though, so when it was done soaking I put it on a cotton towel in our pasta strainer and rinsed it that way. There are probably better options out there, and maybe you don't even need to do this step-I have no clue. Basically, don't let this part freak you out if you don't have a sieve- you'll be fine :)

Enjoy! Mexican Instant Pot Qunioa with Cilantro Lime Dressing Recipe
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Healthy vs. easy..or both? by Maddie Widmer

*This post is written by my friend Maddie Widmer, I'm just posting it for her* Being a small business owner who is married to someone who works in an office 45 minutes away, meal planning and prep is a constant struggle. We are constantly trying new apps to help us stay on track, but more often than we’d like to admit we would end up on the phone ordering food at 6:30 when we’ve both just gotten home for the day. For SO many reasons we hate this, but we keep telling ourselves that this is just temporary. When we found out we were expecting our first child, we realized we needed to do a much better job of planning and eating healthy meals. We signed up for a meal delivery kit, which provides us with the ingredients for 3 healthy home-cooked meals each week. We would sit down at our dual-monitored home office and look through the recipes and my Pinterest board, and use Google Calendars to plan out our meals. We would even link the recipe to the calendar event – talk about be...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meal Planning for the Win! (With two late in the meal planning calendar recipes)

One of the things I've been most thankful for in this time, is the skill of meal planning. Meal planning, like any other skill is something that is practiced. For some people it is easier, and for some people it's more difficult, but we can all always be getting better at it. I wanted to share what meal planning looks like for me, especially right now. 1) Find recipes. I do this in a variety of ways, through cookbooks, past recipes, magazines, but mostly through pinterest.  If you have not tried pinterest, it is worth it-just for the recipes it is worth it. But, hopefully you'll be able to find some recipes on here too! Look for recipes that sound good! Try to find some that have the same ingredients. Try to find variety, not just all pastas or all rice bowls or all pizza, pay attention to how much time each one takes and try to add some variety in there too. Try to find recipes that stretch-these often are things like rice bowls, pasta, quinoa, gnocchi, lentils, or tons o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Food is a funny thing

Food is a funny thing. It can be a source of comfort, or a source of stress. A source of joy or a source of sadness. It can be something we obsess over, or something we don't think about enough. I am someone who usually enjoys cooking, and I especially love finding and trying new recipes. I usually meal plan for at least two weeks at a time, and I've been playing around with more vegetarian recipes. I was raised by a momma who had no problem getting creative in the kitchen, doctoring recipes however she wanted-subbing in ingredients, adding new ones, or leaving some out, it just wasn't a problem. Because this was the model I grew up with, this is also how I cook. So, although it's irritating not to find everything I might think of at the store, I can roll with it. However, I'm aware that this is not how a lot of people interact with recipes. Many people aren't used to meal planning. Many people aren't used to limiting the amount of times you go to the st...
Post a Comment
Read more