A Collection Of Costco Quinoa Salad Copycat Recipes

Costco has a lot of great products in their deli section and one of the most popular is the Quinoa Salad.  While searching online I discovered that a lot of people have been coming up with copycat recipes and I thought I might share them with you today. I do want to be clear, I haven’t made any of these but the reviews are overwhelming positive so I thought they should be be brought to others attention.

Here is one from The Tasteful Tribe.

Nourished by Nic also has one.

Another blog focusing on good nutrition, Wellness by Kay also has one.

And finally, we have one by Clean Eating Kitchen.

As you can see, given quinoa’s well deserved reputation as a superfood, many of these copycat recipes are from nutrition focused individuals. That these recipes are also delicious according to their readers makes for a win-win situation!

So please check out these fellow food bloggers, they have done some great work

I hope you enjoy checking these out and happy eating!

Peppers And Tomatoes Stuffed With Quinoa And Chorizo

I have been intrigued by the idea of stuffed peppers for a long time.  My mother's side of the family immigrated from Eastern Europe two generations ago and stuffed peppers are a favorite in those cultures. I thought the idea of using something hearty and healthy to stuff peppers with sounded like a great idea, but I thought I could put my own spin on it.  I have seen various quinoa stuffed veggies over the years and that seemed like a good start. After some further thought, I decided to use cooked chorizo as the meat in the dish.  Admittedly the sausage makes the dish way less healthy but I do feel less guilty since quinoa rocks as a superfood.  I do have to be honest I made the food more for taste than nutrition but there is at least some nutrition to it with the vegetables, the quinoa and the chia seed.

But that was not the only way I experimented with the dish. While discussing this idea with my wife, she suggested adding a poblano chili to the stuffing and I thought that was an excellent idea. Then, to round out the flavors, we added some chopped onion.  Finally, since my wife is not fond of cooked peppers, we stuffed some tomatoes to suit her tastes. The final dish was as follows:

1 small sweet onion chopped
1 pound chorizo
1 poblano, seeded and chopped
1 cup quinoa, cooked according to directions
About 1 tablespoon of chia seed(Available from Costco)

Peppers and tomatoes, tops cut off and centers cleaned for stuffing

Oven was preheated to 350 degrees.

The chorizo and onion were sauteed together, until the chorizo was cooked through. The chopped poblano was then added and cooked for a few moments. Finally, the cooked quinoa was added, along with chia.  The filling was mixed together and then the vegetables were stuffed.

The stuffed vegetables were placed in the oven and cooked until the tops were browned a bit, about 20 minutes. (Please feel free to cook these to your preference).

Aside from being good eats, I thought the results were attractive:

This was definitely a success and I highly recommend experimenting with stuffed peppers and tomatoes.

Chicken Quinoa Soup With Onions, Carrots And Celery

The New Year started out a bit cold so I thought I would warm us up with some chicken soup. I pulled some chicken and a quart of homemade chicken stock out of the freezer. While the stock was thawing, I cooked up some Christopher Ranch Chopped garlic and some onion in EVOO. After that was cooked up a bit, I added chopped carrots and then onions.

Once all the veggies were properly cooked, I added the stock, quinoa and chopped chicken.  Seasoning the soup was pretty easy, I just added a nice amount of freshly ground black pepper (from Costco) and some Herbs de Provence.  A few minutes of simmering and I was done.

Adding the quinoa instead of noodles made this more nutritious and higher in fiber than adding noodles. (It also made it gluten free).  But this was still good old-fashioned comfort food that fit in perfectly for a cold winter's night in Michigan.

Delicious, easy, quick and nutritious, it was a great Sunday night supper and it will be wonderful leftovers this week for lunch.

Quick Quinoa Beef Soup And New Link

Many of the readers of this blog will know that we are big fans of quinoa. It is nutritious, tasty, versatile and easy to make. (We usually make it in a microwave rice cooker).  The other day we made some to go  with a rotisserie chicken and we made enough so we would have some left over for another use.  That "future use" turned out to be a ground beef soup.

We bought another package of ground beef and before we froze it, we took some of the beef and the liquid from the cooking and used it as a base for a soup. We also added some onions, celery and carrots, plus a bit of seasoning and some quinoa.

This dish came together in minutes, it has some solid nutritional value and it sure was tasty!  Having the right ingredients around speeds up any food preparation and this is a classic example of that. It also illustrates the value of quinoa as a soup ingredient.  Aside from being nutritious and tasty, this also helps make the dish gluten-free for those that have that requirement.

As I said, we are big fans of quinoa and I am pleased to add another fine blog to our list of links: Queen of Quinoa.  This is a wonderful blog with lots of great recipes and I hope that you will take the time to visit it.

Leftover Easter Lamb With Tasty Bite Madras Lentils, Celery and Onions, Served Over Rice

We really enjoy the Tasty Bite Madras Lentils we get at Costco. They are flavorful, nutritionally sound and ready to go.  I was thinking that they would combine well with some left over lamb and my wife eagerly seconded that opinion.  Therefore, I chopped one small onion and one stalk of celery, which my wife sauteed while I trimmed and cubed the lamb.  We tossed the lamb into the pan, added the lentils and warmed everything up.  The meat mixture was then served over some rice.

My wife and I were totally pleased with how well this worked out.  Just serving the lamb and lentils together would have been fine, but I am thrilled with how we made the dish more substantial.  Adding the onions and celery and then serving the whole mixture over rice was effortless but it really made this a very complete dish. The lentils added an elegant but reserved spicy flavor, the onions and celery added crunch and the rice made a wonderful base to serve all this on.

We don't cook leg of lamb that often in our family, but the next time we do, I can guarantee that I will be thinking about this.  Also, for lunch tomorrow, we will be serving the lentil and lamb mixture over quinoa and I am looking forward to that for lunch already!

Peppers And Tomatoes Stuffed With Quinoa And Chorizo

While watching the most recent season of "The Next Food Network Star", I was intrigued by a dish of chicken and quinoa stuffed peppers.  I thought the idea of using something hearty and healthy to stuff peppers with sounded like a great idea, but I thought I could put my own spin on it. After some thought, I decided to use cooked chorizo as the meat in the dish.

But that was not the only way I experimented with the dish. While discussing this idea with my wife, she suggested adding a poblano chili to the stuffing and I thought that was an excellent idea. Then, to round out the flavors, we put in some chopped onion.  Finally, since my wife is not fond of cooked peppers, we stuffed some tomatoes to suit her tastes. The final dish was as follows:

1 small sweet onion chopped
1 pound chorizo
1 poblano, seeded and chopped
1 cup quinoa, cooked according to directions
About 1 tablespoon of chia (Available from Costco)
Peppers and tomatoes, tops cut off and centers cleaned for stuffing

Oven was preheated to 350 degrees.

The chorizo and onion were sauteed together, until the chorizo was cooked through. The chopped poblano was then added and cooked for a few moments. Finally, the cooked quinoa was added, along with chia.  The filling was mixed together and then the vegetables were stuffed.

The stuffed vegetables were placed in the oven and cooked until the tops were browned a bit, about 20 minutes. (Please feel free to cook these to your preference).

Aside from being good eats, I thought the results were attractive:

This was definitely a success. The stuffing of the quinoa and chorizo was flavorful and very satisfying.  As a stuffed vegetable dish this was wonderful, but my wife also had some of the stuffing for leftovers later and she commented it also works well as a stand alone dish.

This was easy, flavorful, and fun and it works well using both the peppers and the tomatoes. It is our guess that this would probably also work well with squash.

If you are looking for a hearty, meaty use of quinoa, this a great idea and I highly recommend this.

Quinoa With Ham, Pineapple, Black Beans and Vegetables

Sorry about the delay in posting. We went on vacation and then when we got back, we had a bunch of mundane chores to do like car shopping.  But it is time to start into posting again. Here is a fun, colorful dish that was easy to make to help me get into the swing of things again.

After Easter, my mother in law offered me all the ham I wanted, so I took her up on the offer.  I thought it might be fun to do something with quinoa and after some research, I came up with this dish.

1 cup quinoa, cooked and just so lightly salted
About 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 small onion, diced
About 1 cup chopped baby carrots
About 1 cup chopped celery
Canola oil
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
A portion of a fresh pineapple, chopped, with some juice from the pineapple
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly ground red pepper
Some freshly ground curry mix
Dried dill, crushed

I cooked the quinoa per directions. While that was happening I sauted  the ginger and garlic in the canola. After they had cooked a bit, I added the onions, then the celery and carrots. When they to about the right consistency, I added the quinoa, pineapple and beans. The last step was to season it and honestly, I just kept adding the spices until it had the flavors I wanted.

Due to our complex schedules, the first meal we had of it was for lunch the next day, so maybe that helped the flavors to meld. In any case, I think I got the seasoning pretty close to where I needed it. The ginger adds a fun, bright flavor while all the rest of the spices help to make the flavor profile broad enough that the dish was a little more complex, but not too busy.

My wife and I both rated this a success and I think we will try ham and quinoa together again.


I took a lot of inspiration from this recipe. However, as it is typical of me, I didn't bother measuring any of the seasonings.  Also, I eliminated the powdered milk and added onions. Finally, I used fresh pineapple and fresh ginger. I think those are probably the biggest changes since they help give the dish a lively, fresh and invigorating zing. (Eliminating the powdered milk also makes this dish a little brighter). I think this recipe definitely has a similar ingredient list to the one I referenced, but I think the few changes I made help to make it significantly different.  But I do want to be honest, I did get some good ideas from the dish I referenced.

Also, the quinoa and the black beans make this a pretty healthy dish, so you can enjoy the wide variety of flavors and textures this dish has to offer without any guilt.

Don't cry over spilled milk

or in this case, a lost dinner.

Chicken 'Pot Pie' with Garam Marsala

The dinner wasn’t a disaster, but storage ended up causing it to be wasted. I made a variation on chicken pot pie seasoned with garam masala inspired by Jeffery Saad. Start with a stock pot that has two small onions chopped, one carrot chopped, one stalk celery chopped and four cloves of garlic grated into it and softened in EVOO over medium heat. Add about six cups chicken stock and about half a rotisserie chicken chopped into bite size pieces. The whole pot is seasoned with salt, pepper and about a teaspoon and a half of garam masala. This all cooked together and about two cups of quinoa is added and left to simmer until cooked. The quinoa took the place that potatoes would be in a regular chicken pot pie.

The dish tasted fantastic, but was too hot to put in the refrigerator right away, so I set it outside to cool down. Unfortunately, the dish fell off the ledge later in the evening and crashed on the cement and we lost the rest of the beautiful dinner and a fine Corning Ware dish as well.

This is a dish we will be making again and hopefully I can take a picture of it and it will be around for Mike to eat as well. I will be more careful about using the 'Minnesota refrigerator' in the future.