Quinoa Crusted Chicken Breasts

Helga Glaesel de BlandingJanuary 6, 2019

This post is also available in / Esta entrada también está disponible en ESPAÑOL (SPANISH)

There a few favorite dishes from my childhood that I now sometimes make for my family. When I was little and went to visit my grandmother on my father’s side, she would always have either of these two meals for me: corn flakes crusted baked chicken, or pineapple pork chops with mashed potatoes and green beans. I later found out that she would only make those meals when she knew I was coming over because she knew how much I enjoyed eating and help prepare them. I was always in the kitchen snooping at what the cook was making.

Now, I try to give some of my favorite recipes a healthier twist. For the crusted baked chicken, I found this recipe that uses quinoa, which I was immediately curious about, it hadn’t occurred to me to use it as for this purpose.

You use cooked quinoa, which sticks very well to the chicken and it comes out with a lovely golden color from the oven, and since it dries out a bit it does have a bit of a crunch to it.

You can make a green salad as a side dish if you are really trying to make this a very healthy meal, the dipping avocado sauce is a really nice compliment to this dish, and we recommend you make it! It’s very easy to prepare, just mash up the avocado and add all the ingredients for the sauce. I avoid using the blender if I can, simply because I hate having to wash it! But you can certainly use the blender to make this sauce.

We’d love to hear from you, so if you try this recipe please let us know!

Helga

Quinoa Crusted Chicken Breasts

Recipe adapted by Faithfully Gluten Free
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:
4 boneless chicken breasts
2 cups cooked quinoa
½ teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon chili powder
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, beaten
Avocado Sauce:
2 small avocados, peeled and pitted
1/4 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves (no stems)
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons greek yoghurt
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon onion powder

Procedure:

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Use a cooling rack to place on top of a cookie sheet, to make sure the chicken bakes evenly and crisps on all sides.
Mix the 2 cups of cooked quinoa with the salt, paprika, chili powder, cumin and pepper.
Set your dipping station: one bowl for the flour, 1 bowl with the beaten eggs, 1 bowl with the spiced quiona.
Cut chicken breasts in half, or in strips.
Cover each piece with flour, then dip into the egg, and finally cover evenly with quinoa. Repeat with all the chicken pieces.
Place on the prepared rack (if you don’t have one, you can line your cookie sheet with parchment paper).
Bake for 25-30 minutes.
To make the avocado sauce, mash the avocados and mix in the rest of the ingredients. This can be made in a blender.

Have you made this recipe?

Please let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below and share a picture with the hashtag #thefoodieskitchen!

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