Quinoa Stuffed Balsamic Portabella Mushrooms

This has been given the official seal of approval by carnivores as a truly satisfying “meatless monday” meal. It’s super easy to make and full of flavour.

Serves 4:

For the Mushrooms:

4 large portabella mushrooms

6 cloves of garlic, bashed, bruised or chopped

1/2 red chilli, sliced (seeds removed if you don’t like things too spicy!)

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

3 tbsp olive oil

pinch of salt and pepper

a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme (or 2 tsp each of dried)

For the Quinoa:

1 cup quinoa

3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

juice of 1 lemon

rind of 1/2 lemon

1 1/2 cups water

1/3 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

1 big handful fresh basil, roughly torn

1 big handful fresh parsley, finely chopped

1 big handful fresh spinach leaves, roughly chopped

The longer you can marinate the mushrooms the better, in fact this is a great meal to prepare a day in advance. The quinoa tastes great after a day too. If you can’t prepare it the day before then just make sure the mushrooms are marinating for at least 2 hours.

Chop off the mushroom stalks, wash any dirt off and pat dry with a paper towel. Put the mushrooms and all the ingredients for the marinade straight into a ziplock bag and shake around so everything is covered. Put the bag in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Shake the ingredients around every so often.

For the quinoa – put a medium saucepan on the stove on a medium heat and add the quinoa, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice. Stir this in as the pan starts to heat up and then add the water after a minute or two. Bring to the boil then turn down to a simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the water is absorbed and the quinoa is cooked.

Once the quinoa has cooled a bit – give it 5-10 minutes or so – add the lemon rind, walnuts, basil, parsley and spinach.

About 15 minutes before you’re ready to eat get your griddle pan (or BBQ!) really hot. Put the mushrooms on stem side up for 5-7 minutes then turn over and cook the other side for the same time.

Add the quinoa either cold – or you could warm it up right before serving.

These work great as a veggie BBQ option, veggie burger, stuffed with quinoa, or sliced up in a grilled cheese!

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09 Feb This entry was published on February 9, 2015 at 5:00 pm. It’s filed under dinner, gluten free, lunch, Uncategorized, vegan, vegetarian and tagged dinner, gluten free, healthy, meatless mondays, paleo, portabello, vegan, vegetarian, veggie burgers. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.