BBQ Fried Quinoa with Veggies

Do you need a recipe to use up some leftover veggies? This BBQ Fried Quinoa with Veggies is a perfect solution. Whether raw or previously cooked, you can use what you have to create this delicious and simple dish. Works great as a side, or as a main course!

We have a habit of grilling up a feast on Sundays, which always results in lots of leftovers. For me, this usually means salads at lunch, topped with leftover grilled vegetables. Well, I didn’t eat as many salads as normal this last week, and I still had a bunch of leftover vegetables which I didn’t want to go to waste.

I thought about doing fried rice, Asian style, but was hoping to come up with something a little more creative. That first meant switching out the rice with quinoa. Not only is quinoa healthier than rice — with more protein and fiber, to name just a couple benefits — I also find it tastier.

Next, I had to decide what seasoning I wanted to use. I thought quinoa would go really well with a barbecue flavor — and I knew the perfect spice blend! Blissful Basil has a recipe for jackfruit pulled pork, which I love to make. In this recipe, before cooking the jackfruit, she has you coat it in a delicious barbecue spice blend. That is the seasoning I’ve used here. My only difference is I use coconut sugar, rather than brown.

Now that I had a good idea of what I was doing, I was ready to make my shopping list and head to the store. What did I then discover? I didn’t need to go shopping that day, because I had every ingredient needed already in my kitchen! The veggies I obviously had, because they were the leftovers which I built this recipe around. Quinoa I always keep on hand, and the only other ingredients I used, were the spices you see above and coconut oil. All of which are items always in my cupboard. That made this meal super easy.

I started by cooking the quinoa because I didn’t already have some made. However, if you have quinoa left over from another recipe, you can go ahead and use it. While the quinoa was simmering, I went ahead and chopped and measured my veggies. Most of what I used was already grilled, but I did add a couple of things to the mix, which needed to be used but were still raw. Those I separated from the cooked veggies so I could add them to the skillet first.

The raw veggies I used were a little bit of red onion and half a small red bell pepper from a friend’s garden. I sautéed those in a bit of coconut oil, and once they were soft, I added my other vegetables and one tablespoon of the spice blend. I continued to sauté these until everything was thoroughly heated. If you like, you could instead use frozen vegetables.

Once all the vegetables were heated I added the quinoa, a little more coconut oil, and the rest of the spice blend. I cooked this at medium for about 5 minutes, and voilà, my dish was complete! This was simple, flavorful, and a big hit with the husband! Oh, and what’s better is that I got to use those vegetables, that otherwise may have gone bad in my fridge.

This BBQ Fried Quinoa with Veggies works nicely as a simple main course, or as a yummy side dish. Next time I might even top it with a veggie patty and some cashew cream, for a more complex meal. If you make this, be sure to take a picture and tag me on Instagram! @veggiesattiffanis