Oven Baked Chicken and Quinoa
- Ready In: 50 minutes
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cooking Time: 30 minutes
- Serves: 4
This dish is the perfect example of something you can #CookAhead or #CookOnceEatTwice. It combines wholegrains, lean protein and a variety of vegetables into one fuss-free meal. It’s delicious eaten on the day, but can also be enjoyed the day after. I’ve used taco seasoning as most brands will be a blend of cumin, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and dried herbs. This saves you the trouble of having to individually add these spices. However, make your choice carefully many brands have sugar as one of the first three ingredients! The best we could find was Masterfoods, where sugar was the 7th ingredient. They all also contain salt. Old El Paso salt-reduced had the lowest salt count but of the “regular” varieties Masterfoods was the lowest.
Ingredients
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 red capsicum, de-seeded and thinly sliced
- 1 green capsicum, de-seeded and thinly sliced
- 2 tbs taco seasoning
- 1 cup quinoa
- 300 g tin corn, drained
- 700 g, or roughly 4 chicken thighs, diced into 2cm chunks
- 1 ¼ cup salt reduced chicken stock
- 2 cups or 2 large handfuls baby spinach
- TO SERVE:
- Fresh coriander, finely chopped to garnish.
Nutrition per serve
2074 kJ (495 Calories), 44 g protein, 14 g fat (including 4 g saturated fat), 45 g carbohydrate (including 8 g sugars), 8 g fibre and 800 mg sodium.
Directions
- Pre-heat an oven to 180ºC/375°F fan-forced.
- Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a pan. Once hot, add the onion, garlic, red and green capsicum. Sauté for 5 minutes, or until softened.
- Add the taco seasoning and quinoa and mix well so the quinoa is coated in the spice mix. Remove from the heat and mix in the chicken thighs and tinned corn.
- Transfer the mixture into a large baking dish and cover with foil.
- Bake in the oven for 25 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until the liquid has completely evaporated.
- Remove from the oven and gently fold in the baby spinach leaves to wilt.
- Garnish with some fresh coriander and enjoy!
Recipe by dietitian Sophie Feng. You can see her on Instagram at @sophies_foodfeast
