How to Cook Quinoa in a Rice Cooker

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This is a tutorial for cooking quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) using a rice cooker. I have been incorporating quinoa into my diet as it is a complex carb (just like brown rice) which is helpful to keep my weight in check (versus eating simple carbs like white rice). A rice cooker is a godsend for those who cook rice (and now, quinoa too) regularly since you don’t have to watch the stove. You basically just wash and drain the quinoa, then add water to the rice cooker to cook the quinoa. Half an hour later (this varies accordingly to your brand of rice cooker), the quinoa will be ready. I’m so glad quinoa cooks so well in the rice cooker hence making it so easy for me to cook it anytime I want.

See Also:

• Quinoa “Fried Rice” Recipe
• Scallops Quinoa Salad Bowl Recipe

The quinoa cooked in the rice cooker is just as fluffy as those cooked traditionally on the stove top.

STEP-BY-STEP PHOTOS


Measure raw quinoa and add to rice cooker inner pot. I’m using tri-color quinoa (the type/colour of quinoa does not matter). You can buy quinoa from NTUC Finest & Cold Storage in Singapore and online (see box below).

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Wash quinoa in 1-2 changes of water by swirling the quinoa around (similar to how one washes rice).

Drain the washed quinoa (I used a wire mesh sieve) …

… and return drained quinoa back to the rice cooker inner pot. Measure and add water or stock to cook the rice, using the ratio 1 part raw quinoa to 2 parts liquid. Set rice cooker to “Cook” using the regular/normal setting for cooking white rice.

This is the cooked quinoa. You can see a little “tail” peeping out from each grain.

Fluff the cooked quinoa with a rice paddle and it’s ready to be served.

Cooked quinoa reheats incredibly well with no change/deterioration in the texture (at least to me). My family can never tell whether the quinoa I served are freshly made or reheated in the microwave.  So I usually make a bit more quinoa, keep leftovers in an Ikea glass food container (pictured above) and chill it in the fridge (up to a week). I’ll portion out what we need and reheat the quinoa on the microwave (at 600W for 1-2 minutes).