Duane and I recently got back from hiking the Inca trail into Machu Picchu in Peru. We certainly didn’t go hungry as the cook for our group made some WONDERFUL meals for us. One of our favorite soups included chicken and quinoa. And while we couldn’t ply his recipe out of him (OK, so it was due to our loose grasp on the Spanish language), this recipe comes close.
Ingredients
- 1 T vegetable oil
- 50 g/2 oz quinoa
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 stick celery, diced
- 2 T finely chopped onions
- 1/2 green capsicum (sweet pepper), diced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 960 ml/32 fl oz water
- 2 large tomatoes, finely chopped
- 50 g/2 oz green cabbage, chopped
- Salt and Pepper
- Freshly chopped Parsley to garnish
Preparation
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the quinoa, carrot, celery, onion, pepper, and garlic. Cook, stirring constantly, until browned.
- Add the water, cabbage, and tomatoes. Stir and bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper and garnish with parsley.
- Serve hot.
Optional Tweaks
Like to get creative? We’ve thrown in some diced chicken breasts in with the cabbage and tomatoes as well as substituted chicken broth for some of the water. Any suggestions for other tweaks we should try? Let us know in the comments.