Roasted veggies are just so good. They don’t take a whole lot of time to prepare and cook, and they’re really flavorful. Roasting seems to concentrate their flavors.
I made this recipe for my partner and me. As much as I love roasted veggies, they don’t work all that well as leftovers. So I chopped enough veggies for four servings, using the measurements below. Then I tossed all the veggies together and roasted half of them the first day. This made plenty of veggies for both of us. The next day, the bowls took very little time to prepare because my veggies were ready for roasting.
This recipe makes a LOT of quinoa, way more than you will use for these bowls. There was so much left, in fact, that I used the leftover quinoa to make a quinoa salad. If you’re planning on making four servings and don’t want to have any quinoa left over, I’d suggest cutting the quinoa in half. Otherwise, use the measurements below and plan on making something else with your leftover quinoa.
I found this recipe on heathercristo.com. I made a few small changes to it, so if you want to try the original recipe, you can find it here.
Meatless Monday: Quinoa-Roasted Veggie Bowl
Quinoa:
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 2 cups white quinoa
- ¼ cup minced flat leaf or curly parsley
Roasted Veggies:
- 1 yam, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
- 1 small red onion, halved and sliced 1/2-inch thick
- 1 red bell pepper, cored and diced
- 1 zucchini or yellow squash, cut into small chunks
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- sea salt
Salad:
- 3 cups baby spinach
- 1 avocado
Garnish:
- pickled red onions*
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Rinse and drain the quinoa. Bring the broth and salt to a simmer over medium heat and then stir in the quinoa. Stir well and bring the quinoa to a simmer then turn the heat to low and put lid on the quinoa. Simmer for 20 minutes and then turn the heat off and let sit until you are ready to serve. Then fluff the quinoa with a fork and gently stir in the fresh parsley.
- While the quinoa is cooking, spread the red onion slices, sweet potatoes, bell pepper and zucchini onto a sheet pan and toss with the olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Roast for 10-12 minutes until everything is golden and tender.
- Make a bed of baby spinach and then pile the quinoa on top and add the roasted vegetables. Sprinkle with the pickled onions and add the avocado to the bowl and serve.
*You can either make your own pickled red onions or buy them already prepared. You can likely find them in any specialty-type store. They are very easy to make and they’re nice to have around in case something you make needs a little extra zing.
The pickled onions I used in this recipe came from an incredible, much-lauded restaurant in the out-of-the-way town of Boulder, Utah. The restaurant is called Hell’s Backbone Grill, named for a scenic and kind of scary section of road just south of Boulder. (The road has 1,000-foot drops on either side, thus its forbidding name.)