Tomato & basil quinoa risotto – gf, vegetarian/vegan option, simple

This tomato and basil quinoa risotto for one, takes ridiculously little time and makes a simple, healthy lunch or dinner idea! The recipe is gluten-free, but we did put some Mozzarella cheese, so if you’re vegan or live dairy-free – just leave the cheese out, mkay? It’s just as good. This quinoa recipe is vegetarian, yet a good source of protein, antioxidants and suitable for weight loss.

Tomato Basil Quinoa Risotto

Quinoa is back in our life and we think it’s here to stay. We haven’t made any recipe with quinoa for a looooong time now, so we're excited to share this one with you. It’s so simple, but soooo good. Something like a risotto, but not really. Because it’s not rice and because you don’t have to stir until you get old and your hair gets grey (which wouldn’t affect us – ours is grey since we were 17).

A reliable part is: you don’t have to worry someone’s gonna make you cry on Masterchef. Now, we don’t know if you ever watched Masterchef, but for a while we were OBSESSED with that show. Even though everything is obviously VERY staged.

We were watching it without blinking, our heart beating fast, wondering what’s gonna happen, even though it was obvious: nothing. Nothing’s gonna happen. But, um…during the dreaded pressure test? After all it’s a DREADED pressure test??

No. Nothing EVER happened on that show. Still, we would watch it for a few hours, if you play it to us right now.

Okay, now we forgot…how did we end up here?

That’s right, risotto!

Until this day – every time we say “risotto” our brainwashed self thinks of the Masterchef judge, who was always spitting out the contestant food. We forgot his name and it’s making us crazy. Anyway, he was so particular with his risottos: Never good enough.

Wonder if he would spit out this quinoa risotto. Probably, after all it’s a QUINOA risotto. How dare we?

But, we’ll never know. That judge wouldn’t have the chance, because we ate it all. Because it was only one serving. Yes, we were cooking just for myself, so we made one serving.

If you’re going to enjoy this in the company of another human and not while scrolling through your phone – then lucky you gets to double or quadruple the ingredients.

Tomato Basil Quinoa Recipe Ingredients

Speaking of, what are those mysterious foods that make up this tasty vegetarian meal? Well, here’s what we’ll need:

• Quinoa. And we need it cooked here, please!
• Zucchini. That would be the one bigger vegetable in the risotto. You can also add any other type of vegetables you enjoy eating…peppers, eggplant or even green beans will work too.
• Garlic, basil and arugula. You do not want to skip these three! They add so much flavor and provide so many health benefits to your body.
• Fresh tomatoes. You can also use canned tomatoes, but honestly, it’s not the same. If tomatoes are in season when you make this, go for fresh! You will also need a few sundried tomatoes.
• Cheese and olive oil. We've reduced our dairy-consumption to a minimum, but we did use mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. We seem to be doing pretty well with those and they’re satisfying, so we did not want to skip them. Also add the extra virgin olive oil.

How it comes together

To make this tasty quinoa risotto, you will start with an simple and tasty tomato sauce.

Blend two fresh tomatoes with sundried tomatoes that have been soaked, some basil and as much garlic as you want. We used a hand blender for this step, but you can use any food processor or blender that you have.

Chop the other two fresh tomatoes and the zucchini.

Cook the chopped tomatoes with olive oil for 1 minute in a medium-sized pan. Then add the tomato sauce you just made.

Stir in the quinoa, for about 1-2 minutes and mix well.

Add zucchini and arugula, mix that well into the quinoa, add a little bit of olive oil.

Turn the heat off and sprinkle cheese all over.

That is all, you’re done and you can dig in!

Meal Prep

So, can you make this for meal prep? Yes you can when you triple the recipe. You can even try freezing it. It will stay good in the fridge for 2-3 days. Can’t promise longer. Also, as you know: We HATE meal prep. The only things we prepare our grains or legumes, if we do it at all.

So if you don’t want to meal prep the entire thing: here’s a more common sense idea – just cook the quinoa ahead for the week. Be overly ambitious and chop the zucchini as well. When you have some cooked quinoa – this healthy recipe comes together in about 10 min. It’s solid for busy weeknights.

Options and Notes

We used just a tiny clove of garlic, but you can add more garlic if you like. We definitely would, at least 2-3 garlic cloves. But we were going out later, so we decided to spare the people around us the stank. Even though we had a fun evening, we still think “giving up” garlic was not worth it. It never is. You know We love garlic. Garlic 4 president and king. And world leader.

Also we know, some of you might say – cheese, no, forbidden, FORBIDDEN!!! Well we say – cheese yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum. Don’t hate. We were craving cheese like an insane person. Okay, we were craving cheese and pizza and pasta all at the same time. Now listen. We can deal with not eating gluten, even though we all know it’s a reliable tasting thing in the world…But come on…

The point is: for all our vegan and dairy-free friends – you can totally leave the cheese out or use a vegan cheese substitute instead. With or without cheese – this is satisfying and you’ll enjoy it.

If you bought some quinoa long time ago and it’s collecting dust, because you didn’t know what to do with that ancient grain…now you know. We made this quinoa recipe spontaneously and did not plan to share it, but we hope you enjoy it as much as we did! If you have any questions – don’t hesitate to ask and let us know how it goes!