Gluten-free Morning: Choco-Banana Quinoa Breakfast

I decided to try another quinoa breakfast after my banana bread quinoa a while back. I figure this chocolate inspiration would be nice since the natural taste of quinoa doesn't appeal to me and chocolate is strong enough to probably cover that up.

Inspiration

Glow Kitchen chocolate banana breakfast quinoa (featured on Greatist)

I didn't exactly follow the recipe, I  skipped some ingredients and subbed some others to keep the calorie count low for this recipe because I usually to eat a small bowl of oatmeal with fruit and a smoothie each morning. The bowl of oatmeal has protein and fiber while the smoothie has superfood powder and 8 oz of liquid to keep me feeling full for at three hours.

I skipped the honey because I sweeten my breakfast with non-dairy creamer, but feel free to use a sweetener in yours.

The original recipe cooks on the stove right before you want to eat it, but I used the quick and easy start-the-steel-cut-oats-on-the-stove-the-night-before method. You bring the ingredients to a boil, move it off the heat, and leave it sit with the lid on all night and it's fully cooked in the morning. Easy-peasy. Then in the morning all you need to do is reheat it, and you're good to chow down.  This is also a good way to use cocoa powder since it gives it a lot more time to hydrate and spread it's chocolatey flavor around. 

Ingredients

serves 2

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1 3/4 cups liquid (I used water, see comment in the Verdict section*)
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• Sprinkle of salt
• 1/2 banana (I used an over-ripe one from my freezer) 

Directions 

Starting the night before:

Put all the ingredients in a small pot over medium-high heat. Mash the banana around until it breaks down into small bits. Bring it to a boil, take it off the heat, and let it sit on the stove with the lid on all night. 

Cocoa powder doesn't mix well into cold liquids.

Starting to heat up, so the cocoa powder incorporates.

The next morning, there was a lot of excess liquid in the pot, so I had to cook for 10 more minutes to get rid of all the extra water.

Cooked it longer, now it's a good porridge texture.

Split it into two bowls. 

My bowl with non-dairy creamer and almond milk on top.

Verdict

Waterlogged, but tasty. 

When I got up in the morning to eat breakfast, the pot had too much water in it, it was super thin and runny. I had to cook this over medium heat for 10 more minutes to get it to a thick "porridge" texture.  That was disappointing since I couldn't eat right away. Don't know if that was my fault with a cooking error or if it was the recipe.   But the flavor was good, I like the classic combination of chocolate and banana together.  I liked my version with only 1/2 of a banana rather than a whole one since I'm not super fond of bananas. 

I'm not gluten-free, but I have a friend who is (hi Renae!) and I would definitely recommend this as a recipe to try.  I would definitely recommend doubling the recipe so you have several servings.  Plus it's easy and doesn't require a lot of ingredients.