How to make Quinoa Bowls!

Hey, welcome to Making Meals with Mika. Before I share what we're cooking today, if you have not subscribed to my channel, go ahead and subscribe, and then go ahead and like this video, okay? Go ahead, I'll wait. All right, so today we are making a quinoa bowl. Listen, winter is over, spring is here, it's time to get your body back. Gotta get back, gotta get back together. So no more heavy meals, we are cooking healthy. So this is everything you need to make the quinoa bowls. Now, when I go on my low carb kick, and I try to reduce my carbohydrates and my complex carbs, I love to use quinoa. Quinoa is a very underrated grain. So let's go with the ingredients that you're gonna need. So this is one cup of washed, organic, tricolored quinoa. I know, I know that was a lot. Listen, quinoa comes in so many different colors, but I love the tricolor, I like the texture of this. So one cup of quinoa, okay? You're also gonna use whatever vegetables you want. One of my favorite veggies is zucchini, so this is one large, I mean, this zucchini was huge. So this is one large zucchini. You can use two if you like to, but this was plenty. This is about two cups of kale. I might add a little bit more in the end, because you know, you start with this much, and then when you cook it down, it'll be this much. So this is two cups of kale. I have one large onion, chopped coarsely. This is not diced, because I want the texture of this onion, okay? I have one chicken breast. Now, this is for only two people, so if you're gonna be cooking for more people, of course, you know, put more chicken in here, or any protein that you like. You wanna use tofu, use tofu. You can totally turn this into like a vegetarian slash vegan dish, you just substitute some ingredients, but this is one organic, free-range chicken breast. I have some, a couple cloves of garlic, chopped, and then I have my homemade chimichurri. Oh, this is delicious! This chimichurri has parsley, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, garlic. If you didn't see my video on how to make this, tune into my video. It's the one where I was cooking steaks. I'll put the link in here, so you can see how to make this homemade chimichurri. It's delicious. And then you're gonna have two cups of chicken broth, okay, to cook the quinoa in. Salt, pepper, a little bit of red pepper flakes, that's it. So these are all the ingredients. Let's get ready to make this meal with Mika. Let's get started with the quinoa. Now, the reason why most people don't like the taste of quinoa is because they don't properly cook it and flavor it. So you're gonna start with a pot. I'm gonna put just a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil in there, okay? Turn that up just a little bit. And what I'm gonna do is, I am going to add my couple of cloves of garlic, all right? You hear that sizzle? So I'm just gonna stir that around. You don't need to cook this garlic for very long because garlic burns very, very easily, all right? This is going to add flavor to that quinoa. So you're gonna stir that around just a little bit. All right, then, and if I wasn't putting any other vegetables in here or using onions in the main course, I would also chop up some onions to put in here because it flavors the kale. But I'm not gonna do that because onions are gonna be cooked with the other vegetables. Now, after that has been cooking for about, what, a minute, you're gonna add your quinoa, okay? Add all of it, stir that around. Then you're going to add your two cups of chicken stock. Now, quinoa has the same ratios as rice. It's two to one. So this is one cup of quinoa, and I put in two cups of chicken broth. I am gonna let that come to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, I am gonna turn it all the way down and let it simmer for about 30 minutes, and we'll have a nice, beautiful pot of quinoa. While this is cooking, let's get started on the rest of the dish. While the quinoa is cooking, we're gonna get started on the chicken. My pan is preheated. I'm gonna add just a little bit of oil to this pan. I know y'all see my wine glass right here. Don't worry about what's in this glass, okay? Don't worry about it. Focus on the pan, just focus on the pan. So we are going to cook our chicken. Ooh, you hear that sizzle? That's what you wanna hear. We're gonna cook this chicken until it's all the way cooked. It's gonna take maybe four to five minutes. We are going to add a nice helping of our sea salt. We're gonna add some pepper. Really, really simple flavors, okay? Really, really simple flavors. And then I always love a little heat. Just a little heat, just a little bit. A little crushed red pepper. Turn it up a notch. Now, we just wanna let this do its thing and let it cook. I'm gonna turn the heat up a little bit. It smells so good already. I just love when all the aromas, all the aromas are coming through. So we're just gonna toss that around like that there. You know, chicken breast does not take a long time to cook. You do not want to overcook your chicken breast because then it becomes dry. Man, I can't stand no dry chicken. Do you hear me? Dry chicken is not delicious, okay? It is not delicious. So we gotta do whatever we need to do to make sure this chicken stays moist. That means you don't overcook it. That means you gotta constantly watch your food and you gotta constantly stir it. Okay, you're gonna go ahead and stir it. Now, before it gets all the way done, I'm gonna turn it down. And I'm only gonna add about half, ooh-wee, about half of this chimichurri. Look at that. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Ooh-wee. Now, you cannot tell me that was not sexy. Boy, ooh-hoo, look at that. Now, we're gonna let that just go ahead and marinate in that good chimichurri sauce and cook. And we're gonna cook this for an additional couple minutes. And then we're actually gonna take the chicken out and start on our veggies. But look at that. You can't tell me that don't look delicious already. You just wanna put your fork in there right now, right? Nope, it ain't done. Can't eat it yet. Let's let this do its thing. All right, this is what it should look like when your chicken is done. You see the sauce has turned from a light green to a dark green. The chicken is fully cooked. So we're gonna remove it from the heat and we're gonna just turn the heat down just a little bit. And I'm going to put this in another bowl, okay? I'm gonna take it out, put it in the bowl. I'm not gonna leave it on the heat, all right? Then I am going to just cover the bowl with some foil. If you wanna put this in a Tupperware bowl, you can. You just want this to be sitting and let it continue to stay warm. Put it in the bowl, okay? Now that same, that same skillet. You don't have to wash it out. We want all those juices, okay? We want those juices. Now it's time to cook the vegetables. Now this is a very important part because vegetables cook at different times. So now we used oil for the chicken. Our chimichurri has oil, that's enough oil. We're gonna put a little bit of butter in here, okay? About two tablespoons of butter, all right? Now between my kale, my onions, and my zucchini, my kale and onions are gonna take the longest time to cook. So I like to start with my onions. I'm gonna put those in there, okay? We're gonna let this get all of that, all that goodness. Turn your heat up a little bit higher, all right? And see, so these onions are being coated in the leftover flavors that was from that good chicken. Our chicken is here, the onions are cooking. And they smell amazing. Now as you can see, I cut these in bigger pieces. That's because I want to actually taste and bite into these onions when I eat them, you understand? I don't want diced onions, I want a whole piece of onion. Now it's time to add the kale. Now I told you, this is about two cups. You might wanna add a little bit more because we all know if you've ever cooked with kale before, it starts off, ooh, I lost one. See, and then you lose it. It starts off as two cups and then it turns into nothing. So let me add a little bit more. I got backup kale, sure do. I'm gonna add a little bit more kale to that. There we go. We're just gonna let these get familiar with one another. It smells so delicious in here, I'm telling you. So the quinoa that's cooking in the chicken stock, it has an aroma. And then the chicken that cooked with the chimichurri, it has an aroma. And now we got the onions with the butter and the kale, it has an aroma. And it all smells quite delicious. Now I'm not gonna season this just yet. I wanna season it, but I'm not because I don't wanna over season it, okay? Now, the onions and the kale, they take a little bit longer time. Why do I keep dropping my kale? Why does my kale keep coming out the pan? So listen, and I cook all the time, guys, and I'm making the kales coming out the pan. So if your kale spills out the pan, it's all right. You see, my kale done spilled out the pan 51 times. All right, it's looking good. Looking good, and it's smelling good. All right, I'm not gonna put the camera on me because I want y'all just to see the pan, but I'm having a good time over here. Time to take another sip of this good wine. Y'all see that? Yeah, I'm about to, y'all see me? I'm about to sip. So you guys see how beautiful this is? This is gorgeous. Now, when we put this quinoa bowl together, we're gonna layer it. That's why I'm cooking everything separate. All right, so I don't like my kale to be too mushy. Kale has a bite to it. Zucchini only takes about seven minutes to cook, so I think we're making good time. Now it's time to add the zucchini. There we go. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Now, you cannot tell me this is not looking delicious. Now, you don't have to add any other oil, butter, or anything because zucchini has a high water content, so it's not gonna stick because it's gonna start releasing its juices. Now look at that big skillet full of beautiful vegetables. All right, now it's time to season. If you guys didn't know, the little handle in your pot and pans, that's where you put your spoon. What? Did you just learn something today? Yes, that's where you put your spoons at. All right, we're gonna season. Sea salt and pepper. That's it. You don't need no garlic, no onion powder. You don't need any of that because we already have fresh garlic in the chimichurri and we have garlic in our quinoa, okay? You don't need too much salt because we have salt in the chicken stock and in our chicken that we cook. And we use the chicken stock to cook the quinoa. So I just put some pepper, a little bit of sea salt because I want the natural flavors of these vegetables to come out. All right, I'm gonna saute this down until it becomes one nice, beautiful, delicious medley. Then I'm gonna show you how to put this bowl together. The veggies are done. You see that? The onions are nice and translucent, meaning you can see through them. The kale is still a bright green, but it's soft. It's not like a dark brown. And then the zucchini is nice and soft, but not mushy. So our vegetable medley is done. Our chicken is done. Let's check on the start of the dish, which is the quinoa, so we can put this bowl together. Let me show you when you know your quinoa is done. So it's kind of like rice. Like I said, you see, now those little pearls have kind of opened up. Now, all you do is you take your fork and you're not gonna stir it. You're gonna fluff it, just like rice. You're gonna fluff it. And there you go. Beautiful quinoa. Let's put this bowl together. I'm hungry. Okay, so it's time to put this bowl together. I'm gonna do it right here over the stove. So we have our beautiful quinoa. We have our nice, warm chicken in the sauce, and then we have our vegetables. So what you're gonna do is take a nice helping of that quinoa. Smells delicious. Okay, I'm gonna use another spoon. I'm gonna come in here and get this chicken with the sauce. Make sure you sop it all up. So the sauce is gonna make sure that it's not dry. All right. Look at that. Delicious. And then we're gonna top it with our gorgeous vegetables. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. If that's not delicious, I don't know what it is. Now, I got some sauce on the side. Look, I ain't gonna play with y'all. I ain't gonna play with y'all. That's good. Now look at that. Now, my husband would take all this and mix it all up. You can do that, teach us all. I like to keep all my layers separate so I can taste each thing separately. But you do wanna get a nice, look at that. Look at that steam. You got the quinoa, you got the vegetables, you got the chicken, you got the chimichurri. Let me blow it. I'm not trying to burn my mouth. Look at that. Is that good? You have to close your eyes. And tell me, it's so delicious. The quinoa is perfectly cooked. You have that flavor from the chicken stock. The chicken is tender, has that great sauce, and then the vegetables are delicious and succulent. Look at this. Who says that eating healthy was boring? Okay, so go ahead and make this meal. Let me know what y'all think about it. But thank you for tuning in and making this meal with Mika. I'm about to smash this. I'll holler.