Spicy Tuna Quinoa – two ways!

Once upon a time when I was in a land far, far away (Australia) I waltzed into once my preferred natural food markets, conveniently located on my favorite discount shopping street, who conveniently always offers massive amounts of samples.

I was a bit peckish and opted for something more substantial. The flavor combination has been stuck in my head ever since.

It was a black or red quinoa (I forgot, oops) tuna, and a bunch of things which made is spicy.

I’ve experimented with sriracha, hatch chiles, chile powder, red quinoa, black quinoa. Finally I’ve developed the prefect recreation to my memory. And one for those who aren’t spicy fanatics.

I made a spicy version and a non spicy. It doesn’t really matter if you use the spicy version on the red or black quinoa though. Feel free to sub in TVP for the tuna to veg-i-fy it.

A little background on colored Quinoa

Basically the darker the color, the nuttier the taste. So choose based on your taste preference, the red was just right if we’re going to speak in Goldilocks terms.

So Black Quinoa = super nutty

Red Quinoa = rather nutty

Beige Quinoa (the natural) = just a bit nutty

SUPER SPICY TUNA BLACK QUINOA

• 1 c quinoa
• 2 c water
• 3 hatch chiles
• 1 squirt of sriracha
• 1/2 t cayenne pepper
• 1/2 t Habanero flakes
• 1 or 2 t salt
• ½ can tuna

SPICY TUNA RED QUINOA

• 1 c quinoa
• 2 c water
• 3 hatch chiles
• 1-2 t salt
• ½ can tuna
• 1/4 t cayenne
• 1/2 t Habanero flakes
• 1/4 t chile del arbol

1. Add water, quinoa, and a teaspoon of salt to pot and bring to a boil
2. Add in the hatch chiles early on to let it soak up the flavor (also add the sriracha here for the super spicy version)
3. Once the mixture looks about done add the remainder of ingredients
4. Season and spice to taste!

Once cooled the spiciness toned down a bit and the black quinoa was actually  bit more to my liking on the spicy scale.

This has been a nice change up to my previous quinoa mixtures and I’ve really been enjoying it for lunch (..and dinner…and breakfast…and I’m weird…)

I’m gonna end with a truly random question that has nothing to do with any of the above.

What is the oddest/most unique type of music you listen to when blogging, doing work, cleaning, etc…?

For me: it’s a tie between motown and funk. It just gets my brain groove goin’

x

Casey