This Creamy Chicken Quinoa Recipe features mushrooms, bacon and herbs. It is both gluten and dairy free, and despite the inclusion of bacon is actually pretty low fat, as well.
In most of my quinoa recipes I use precooked quinoa, but in this one dry is used. It was still done in a reasonable amount of time. Keeping meal cooking time down is a lot of the reason I tend to use precooked. Perhaps I will start precooking this particular ingredient less often. I currently have my daughter on a gluten and casein free diet, so I haven’t been keeping milk in the house. I must say almond milk has proven to be a versatile replacement in my recipes. It effectively added the creamy texture and taste I wanted for this chicken quinoa recipe.
- ½ tbs olive oil
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 2-3 slices nitrate free bacon
- ¼ tsp dry thyme
- ½ lb organic chicken breast
- 4-6 ounces shitake mushrooms (crimini would work well also)
- 1 cup golden quinoa (dry)
- 2 cups msg free chicken stock
- 1 cup milk (sub almond milk if dairy-free)
- 1 large sprig fresh of tarragon or rosemary
- Place oil in pan over med-high heat.
- Chop the bacon into small pieces, and add the the hot pan, along with the garlic and dry thyme. Fry until bacon is crisp.
- Add the chicken and mushrooms. Stir.
- As soon as the outer portion of chicken is cooked, add the quinoa.
- Stir and cook for about 2 minutes. To toast quinoa.
- Add chicken stock, milk herb sprig.
- Cover and reduce heat to low-med.
- Cook for approximately 35 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed.
Sounds good – only I’d skip the mushrooms.
I’m not a mushroom fan either, but it looks good!
I wouldn’t change a thing, it looks perfect
Just wanted to let you know how much my family loves this recipe! My daughter is on a special diet and this fits what we need, minus the bacon because of the nitrates. Even without bacon, it’s still delicious one of these days, I’ll splurge for the nitrate free and we’ll try the bacon version, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to go back.
I’m glad you & the family liked it Chelsi. When I buy the nitrate free bacon, I separate it into 2-3 strip portions for use in recipes… otherwise it will get eaten up all at once and neither the budget nor my waistline can handle that…lol