Healthy and delicious, this vegan stir fry with quinoa is loaded with seasonal vegetables and fresh flavors. With simple ingredients, and ready in just under 30 mins, this recipe is a sure keeper and “repeater”!
Vegetable stir fry is a convenient and healthy one-bowl weekday meal. I love the flexibility it offers — one grain, lots of vegetables, and simple seasoning. They are so convenient that I make a vegetable stir fry with different grains for at least one or two meals every week! You can see my weekly meal plans here.
Last week I made a big pan of quinoa stir fry for dinner and for a planned leftovers lunch. In this recipe, I’ve used carrots, onions, red, and green capsicum (bell peppers) and lots of fresh parsley. I love the vibrant colors and the mix of soft and crunchy vegetables.
I’ve also used a mix of red, black, and white quinoa. They not only add more color to the stir fry
Quinoa is a particularly healthy grain for making vegetable stir fry and the salad recipes. Unlike rice and other grains, quinoa is often used in vegetarian and vegan meal plans especially because of its high protein content.
Health benefits of quinoa include:
- It is naturally gluten-free
- It is also a complete protein meaning quinoa has all the 9 essential amino acids.
- It is a whole-grain carbohydrate providing high energy with low fat content.
- 100 g of cooked quinoa has 21g of carbohydrates, 1.9 g of fat, 2.8 g of dietary fiber and 4.4 g of protein.[source]
- Quinoa also provides many key vitamins and minerals like magnesium and vitamin B.
If you like this recipe, I would really appreciate if you can rate it below and/or leave your feedback in comments. It will encourage me to keep learning, improving, and sharing.
Vegetable stir fry with quinoa | Quinoa Pilaf
Ingredients (1cup = 240ml; 1tbsp = 15ml; 1tsp = 5ml)
- 1 cup mixed quinoa (150 g) you can use mixed quinoa or a single variety.
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
- Salt to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 6-8 sprigs fresh parsley finely chopped
About 1 cup of mixed seasonal vegetables. I have used these:
- 2 carrots chopped
- 1 small onion chopped
- ½ green bell pepper chopped
- ½ red bell pepper chopped
Instructions
How to cook quinoa
- Place the quinoa in a fine mesh colander and rinse it under running water. Quinoa seeds have a naturally occurring bitter coating called saponins which gives it a bitter flavor. Rinsing helps remove that.
- In a thick bottom pan, add the rinsed quinoa with double the amount of water and some salt.
- Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer and cook until all the water is absorbed. About 10-15 mins. *
- Remove from heat and let it stand covered for 5 minutes.
- Open, fluff and use in salads or stir fry recipes like this one 🙂
To make quinoa vegetable stir fry
- While the quinoa is cooking, chop all the vegetables and heat oil in a big enough flat pan. **
- When the oil is hot, add carrots. Sauté for 2 minutes.
- Add onions and bell pepper (capsicum). Mix well and sauté for another 2 minutes.
- Add salt, pepper, and the cooked quinoa. Mix well.
- Add fresh parsley and adjust seasoning to taste.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
- *You will know that the quinoa is cooked when it is puffed up and you will see a curly little “tail” come out of each quinoa seed which is, in fact, the seed’s germ or bran. This tail that sprouts out when quinoa is perfectly cooked is super nutritious.
- **All the vegetables are pan-sautéed but you can also roast some vegetables like sweet potato, beetroot, cauliflower, or broccoli in the oven and add for a different flavor.
- Nutritional Information is the approximate value of 1 serving.
While quinoa is a superfood grain for vegetable stir fry recipes, try making stir fry with different grains for variety. Some other healthy and delicious vegetable stir fry recipes on the blog are:
- Millet stir fry using proso millets
- Asian stir fry with tofu and brown rice
- Indian
upma style stir fry with vermicelli Indo-chinese fried rice recipe with basmati rice or- Vegan Paella with a mix of white and brown rice
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