Quinoa upma is the best way to start with including quinoa in your diet to suit Indian taste buds. It is simple and easy to prepare for breakfast.

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Last week itself I opened a new pack of quinoa, made it tomato rice style. It was not perfect taste/ result to post in blog, so just had it for lunch.
To start this week with a healthy note, I planned to post quinoa upma. For the family as well as for the blog this is a great start right? 😏
I loved quinoa very much when I made patties kind with it as well as fried rice.
Have used up in many forms of Indian style recipes before I finished the packs of quinoa I bought earlier. Most of them are too simple recipes like lemon quinoa etc.
But again I wanted to buy/ use up the quinoa I had, to post a series of recipes using it.
Even mentioned that I will post many in my quinoa fried rice post, after which quinoa just vanished from my pantry as well as blog.
This year bought a pack of quinoa for a shooting sake. But ended up not using it for that shoot.
I planned to at least use for blog recipes from Jan, to now it's already March🤦♂️. At last, here i am, yass!
Method
1. Wash and soak quinoa until you prepare the ingredients. Use metal strainer to wash and drain.
2. Heat a pan with oil, and splutter mustard. Add urad dal, chana dal and give it a stir. In goes ginger, green chilli and curry leaves. Follow by adding onion, carrot, peas.
3. Stir fry for a minute and add chopped tomato. Cook for a minute.
4. Add washed, drained quinoa. Roast for a minute.
5. Add salt, and 1 cup water (I add hot water). Bring to boil and cook covered in medium flame for 10 mins. Again give it a mix and cook in low flame for another 10 mins.
6. Once done, fluff and drizzle coconut oil and serve.
I loved to have as such hot (always love to have upma as such hot) but you can serve with coconut coriander chutney.
Recipe card
Quinoa upma recipe
Equipments (Amazon Affiliate links)
Ingredients
- ½ cup Quinoa
- 1 Onion small
- 1 tomato small
- 3 green chilli
- 1 tablespoon carrot chopped
- 1 tablespoon green peas
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil virgin
- 1 cup water
- Salt
To temper
- 2 teaspoon coconut oil virgin
- ½ teaspoon Mustard
- 1 teaspoon Urad dal
- 2 teaspoon Chana dal
- 1 teaspoon chopped ginger
- 1 sprig Curry leaves
Instructions
- Wash and soak quinoa until you prepare the ingredients. Use metal strainer to wash and drain easily.
- Heat a pan with oil, and splutter mustard. Add urad dal, chana dal and give it a stir.
- In goes ginger, green chilli and curry leaves. Follow by adding onion, carrot, peas.
- Stir fry for a minute and add chopped tomato. Cook for a minute.
- After that, add washed, drained quinoa. Roast for a minute.
- Add salt and water (I add hot water). Bring to boil and cook covered in medium flame for 10 mins.
- Again give it a mix and cook in low flame for another 10 mins.
- Once done, fluff and drizzle coconut oil and serve.
Notes
- Washing Quinoa is very important and always use metal strainer as quinoa is light grain, it will easily flow into drain.
- Adding ginger adds good flavour to upma, suppressing the nutty flavour.
- If you want upma on softer side, add ¼ cup more water.
Rajee
Water quantity or ratio?
Raks Anand
Oh my God, forgot! thank you for asking, updated now 🙂
Laks
Please confirm... Is water double of quinoa for this upma...& 1& 1/4 cup water for softer version?
Raks Anand
Yes. Just double. For half cup I used 1 cup.