How to get the most flavor out of your quinoa
Quinoa can be used in all sorts of ways: as a base for a salad, instead of rice, or in your soup. But how do you bring out that delicious nutty flavor to the fullest? I discovered a few tips that deliver maximum flavor with minimal effort. Perfect.
To get more flavor out of your quinoa, toast it before cooking. Huh? Toast it? Yes, this gives the seed (it’s not a grain, as FavorFlav’s Emma already explained here) a caramelized coating through the Maillard effect and, above all, makes it more flavorful. Do it just as you would with pine nuts: for about three to five minutes over medium heat. The color will change slightly, but make sure the quinoa doesn’t get too brown.
And then?
Then cook the quinoa—not with an equal water-to-quinoa ratio, but just like pasta, in a large pot. So take a pot of water, add some salt, and bring it to a boil.
Add the quinoa and cook it uncovered for about twelve minutes. To add even more flavor, you can cook it with garlic, thyme, bay leaves, and onion; naturally, you can experiment with this yourself.
Taste the quinoa before draining it to check whether it is fully cooked; it should be soft but still have some bite. Another delicious way to add more flavor: cook the quinoa in chicken or vegetable stock.
Rinse it?
Normally, you should rinse quinoa—before doing anything with it—to remove the saponin, which is said to taste bitter and soapy. But is that really true? The Kitchn cooked two portions of quinoa, both toasted, but one portion was rinsed before cooking and the other wasn’t.
What did they find? The unrinsed portion had a nuttier, earthier flavor, and the texture was firmer. The rinsed quinoa had a milder flavor. So the choice is yours: rinse it or not?
