As a dietitian and a foodie, my friends and clients often share with me their favorite recipes that they believe I might enjoy. They text me, e-mail me, call me, or personally hand me recipes that they’ve either tried and loved, or that they think I should try and let them know if they are actually as good as they sound. Last year I met someone very special and worked with him to adapt a healthier diet for his extreme endurance sporting events. The first time we met he learned that I love to cook and blog, then afterwards he sent me a few of his favorite recipes, including today’s recipe. It took me a while to try it, but boy I’m glad I did!
I modified the recipe a tad, because that’s just what I do. I think I ended up with close to perfection. This was extremely tasty and filling, to say the least.
Breakfast Quinoa Bake, with Peanut Butter and Syrup
Ingredients
- 1½ cups cooked quinoa, cooled (~3/4 cup dry quinoa)
- 4 eggs, beaten
- ⅓ cup vanilla soy milk or almond milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp. cinnamon
- 2 Tbsp. maple syrup
- Peanut butter for topping; ~ ½ Tbsp. per serving
- Optional: Extra syrup for the top (I used sugar-free) **
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees and place quinoa in a large mixing bowl. Line an 8 x 8 baking pan with lightly greased parchment (or just grease your pan and forget the parchment).
- In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, soy milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon until thoroughly combined. Add maple syrup and whisk.
- Add egg mixture to cooked and cooled quinoa. Stir with a large spoon to combine. Pour into baking dish and spread around to ensure that it’s even.
- Bake ~20 minutes until set and golden.
- Gently remove the bake from the pan as soon as possible so that it doesn’t steam (or stick to the pan). Cool completely on a rack or plate and cut into 9 squares. Serve with peanut butter and top with syrup, if you’d like.
Notes
** If you are following a low FODMAPs diet you will be happy to learn that this recipe is free of FODMAPs. However, if you use sugar-free syrup for the topping like I did, be careful not to use one with sugar alcohols. If you do, don’t use much (maybe 2 Tbsp, max). This is a gluten free recipe.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1 square Calories: 131
I stacked the squares for photography purposes. It just looks better this way, right?
You could eat one square, two squares, or three.
But, the nutrition facts below are for one delicious square.
Estimated Nutrition Facts for 1/9th of bake
Includes peanut butter on top
Doesn’t include additional syrup
Source: CalorieCount.com
Nutrition Highlights: Under 150 calories and a good source of protein (although you could have two squares and be just under 300 calories, which in my opinion is a good thing, remember my blog post? Add some Greek yogurt on top or whey protein and bam, you’ve got 30 grams of protein!).
I saved the rest of the “Squares” for breakfasts throughout the week. I actually made the following a couple times for breakfast; 1 quinoa bake square, topped with Greek yogurt, frozen berries, PB2 and sugar free maple syrup. Oh yum.
