Make this delicious coconut quinoa with just 4 simple ingredients! It’s like your classic coconut rice, but made with a complete protein and so much more love!
You Can Eat Coconut Quinoa with Everything
The world is quinoa obsessed! Five years ago people were still pronouncing quinoa a thousand different ways and you had to drive to a coop to find quinoa when you were brave enough to prepare it!
Not only can you buy quinoa at any grocery store, you can buy quinoa products, too! Quinoa chips, puffed quinoa granola bars. It’s everywhere!
We have plenty of quinoa recipes on FFF, too! We love making big batches of quinoa on the stovetop to use in buddha bowls and other meal prep recipes. Did you know you can make quinoa on the stove, in the microwave, and even in the Instant Pot?
The options are endless! It all depends on what you prefer and what you have access to. We prepare this coconut quinoa on the stovetop! We developed this coconut quinoa recipe for a little something different!
We love coconut rice and thought a healthier spin could be coconut quinoa. Let’s talk deets.
How to Make Coconut Quinoa
Coconut Quinoa is SO easy to make! You only need 4 ingredients to create a fluffy and slightly sweet batch of quinoa. The ratio to cook quinoa is generally 1:2 (1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of coconut milk). We stuck with that ratio!
Step 1: Choose Ingredients
You need quinoa, coconut milk, water, and maple syrup for this recipe!
Coconut Milk: We like to use full-fat coconut milk for our coconut quinoa. It offers the best flavor and the best creamy texture! Other coconut milks that would work are below!
Quinoa: You can use any color of quinoa that you would like! We generally have white quinoa in our house, but any will do! We get the question “Do I need to rinse my quinoa?” a lot.
In all honestly, I haven’t rinsed my quinoa in years. It is all about personal preference. I don’t notice a difference in flavor, but some people do! If you notice a weird taste when you don’t rinse your quinoa, go ahead and rinse it!
Sweetener: Maple syrup is one of our favorite natural sweeteners! We love the flavor the maple gives the coconut quinoa. However, feel free to use honey or agave as a sweetener substitute!
Step 2: Let it Cook
To prepare the quinoa, place coconut milk, water, maple syrup, and quinoa in a sauce pan and bring it to a boil over high heat.
Next, turn the heat to low, cover the saucepan and let the quinoa cook for about 20 minutes or until the quinoa is cooked!
Step 3: Serve
Remove the quinoa from the heat and serve immediately with one of our favorite meals to serve with this coconut quinoa!
Otherwise, let the coconut quinoa cool completely before storing it in a meal prep container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. It’s perfect for meal prep throughout the week!
What do I serve with coconut quinoa?
We love serving our coconut quinoa with Asian inspired dishes that have a little kick (just like our Thai Coconut Quinoa Bowls!). But feel free to serve it with whatever you’d like! Our three favorite dishes to serve with coconut quinoa are below!
- As a side for this General Tso’s Cauliflower
- Replace the grits with coconut quinoa for this cajun shrimp!
- Serve coconut quinoa with this Korean Beef!
Another DELICIOUS way to eat this coconut quinoa is serve it for breakfast or as a dessert! It is slightly sweet and would be scrumptious served with berries and nuts for breakfast. As for dessert, we love serving coconut quinoa with fresh strawberries and coconut cream. OM NOM NOM.
Your Quinoa Should Look like THIS
This is KEY! You quinoa should absorb all of the liquid in the pan! The quinoa should not be watery or soupy. The coconut quinoa should look like the photo below!
There are a couple of reasons your coconut quinoa could be watery…
- You didn’t measure correctly. Make sure your quinoa:liquid ration is 1 cup:2 cups.
- The coconut quinoa isn’t done cooking.
- Sometimes quinoa doesn’t cook correctly if it’s old and expired, so be sure to check the expiration date of your quinoa!
Recipes to Eat with Coconut Quinoa
Coconut Quinoa Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa
- 15 oz. canned full-fat coconut milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup or more, to taste
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a medium size pot.
- Bring to a rolling boil over medium/high heat.
- Once boiling, reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for around 20 minutes or until the liquid has absorbed and the quinoa has fully cooked.
Tips & Notes
- Nutrition Information includes full-fat coconut milk
- This recipe was updated on March 6, 2020.
Mine turned out like this too… its like a very creamy and weird quinoa, does not look like the picture at all.
I Don’t like printing an ADD With This Recipe, Can’t Wait to try the Coconut quinoa
Hi – I really like the idea of coconut quinoa, however, the ratio of liquids to grain seems off. Quinoa normally cooks in 15 mins or so with 1 cup of grain to 1 cup of liquid. While I wondered about the full can of coconut milk, we gave it a try. It turned out to be quinoa in a lot of white coconut milk – kind of like rice pudding. It ended up absorbing more once it sat for a while after cooked (I had to cook for 15 mins to get it even partially absorbed), but still very thick with the coconut milk. Yours in the picture doesn’t look white at all. I would try more quinoa with that much milk next time. Thank you.
Is the quinoa supposed to be hard😂 what did I do wrong?
Hi there. I’m new with quinoa and am
Looking for a way to eliminate the bitter aftertaste of simple boiled quinoa. Does the coconut milk mask the aftertaste?
Hi Delaine! You can try rinsing your quinoa before boiling. That should do it!
Could you make rice the same way? I’m the only person in my family who will eat quinoa but everyone likes rice!!
Yes, absolutely!
Has anyone tried this recipe with Coconut Nectar instead of Maple Syrup? I’m going to try it and see how it tastes. Coconut nectar is a nice healthy alternative to syrup i think
If Glamour magazine said it, then it MUST be true!! I am obsessed with coconut everything – water, rice, body wash… might as well add it to my quinoa too!
LOL. At first I thought you meant that you eat body wash. I was a little concerned 😛
This looks so delicious!! I love making bowls during the week – they’re easy and so healthy! I top this with some roasted chickpeas ?? But I pretty much top everything with roasted chickpeas sooo….
Roasted chick peas are THE BESTTTTT. What spices do you usually use?
Usually just a little garlic powder, onion powder, and a touch of cayenne pepper for that heat? I have maple cinnamon on my to-do list, though!
Mmmm… I can’t wait to try this with your honey sriracha chicken! Coconut & sriracha are about my 2 favorite things ever!
p.s. I did you full-body chair workout from your workouts to do in 2016 post and LOVED it! The no-crunch ab burner is on my list of things to do today 🙂
YES, the honey sriracha chicken would be AMAZING with this. Glad you loved the chair workout…that one is a burner.
What a clever (and delicious) idea that can be a good swap for oatmeal, rice or porridge! YUM!
YES! Love that this can double as a dinner side or breakfast 🙂
Love this! I’ve been obsessed with coconut quinoa lately – I make it for breakfast almost every morning. I’ve never thought of adding in maple syrup though, I’ll def have to try it!
Just the right amount of sweetness to bring out dat coconutty flavor 🙂
I may never go back to regular quinoa after this!
SERIOUSLY. IT’S SO GOOD!