If you’ve never tried quinoa, you might not know how to cook it at first. Luckily, this grain that is mostly found in South America, is as easy to handle as rice. If you can boil rice, you can cook quinoa. Although you can certainly eat it alone, I thought it tasted particularly good with the corn-avocado salad that I made with it. Quinoa provides a good amount of protein and is also an excellent source of manganese, magnesium, and iron.

Ingredients

1 cup of red quinoa
2 cups of water
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

For the corn-avocado salad:

1 15 1/4 ounce can whole kernel corn, drained or:
4 medium ears of yellow corn, with kernels cut from the cobs
1 15 ounce can of black beans, drained
1 ripe avocado, sliced
1/3 cup of cilantro, chopped
1/3 cup of red bell pepper, chopped
1 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon of Mexican chili powder
1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Rinse the quinoa and cook with 2 cups of water for about 15 minutes in the microwave, or a bit longer on the stove, until all liquid is absorbed. You should be able to use the same 2-1 ratio of water to quinoa as you use for rice.

2. Peel and slice the avocado and set aside. Chop the red bell pepper and cilantro.

3. Mix the corn, black beans, bell pepper, lime juice, chili powder, garlic powder, and salt and pepper.

4. Toss in cilantro and top with sliced avocado.

5. Combine with the red quinoa or serve separately.