Gluten-Free Quinoa Breakfast Muffins

We had friends over for brunch today and instead of the standard waffles/bacon/eggs/ I wanted to try something healthier and gluten-free.

I had some left over, frozen quinoa from my Gluten-Free Curried Quinoa Salad and that was my base. Adding some eggs, fresh diced veggies and spices turned into delicious, filling and healthy Gluten-Free Quinoa Breakfast Muffins.

Easy. Tasty. Healthy and hearty.

What You'll Need (makes one dozen muffins):

• Muffin tins
• Large bowl
• 2.5 cups cooked quinoa
• 1/2 cup cooked bacon cubes or diced, pre-cooked low fat ham (pre-cooked, low fat ham would be preferred, but you can't find that in this country - so, I pre-cooked bacon cubes instead. I pre-cooked them so I could drain the bacon fat out first)
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup shredded cheese (I used gouda...as I live in Holland)
• 1/2 cup diced red pepper (can be your favourite colour pepper, I find red and orange the nicest)
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/2 cup diced green onion
• 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp your favourite chicken or bbq rub - I used The Silk Road Spice Merchant's Saltwater Chili-Lime Seasoning as it has just the right amount of zing

What You'll Do:

• Cook your quinoa - let cool
• Cook your bacon cubes - drain all fat and let cool
• Dice your red pepper, green onions and cilantro
• Pre-heat your oven to 350C (175F)
• In your large bowl - add in your eggs and egg whites, cooked bacon or ham cubes, shredded cheese of choice, diced cilantro, pepper of choice and green onion
• Twist in your pepper

• With a fork, whisk until fully combined
• Add in your pre-cooked, cooled quinoa (you don't want this to be hot because when you add it to the egg mixture, it will start to cook the raw egg)
• Mix thoroughly until all quinoa is covered 
• Lightly oil your muffin tins
• Spoon in the quinoa mixture into the muffin tins - pressing down on the mixture to ensure the mixture is firmly packed in

• Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges start to look brown
• Remove and let cool for 5 minutes or until firm enough to remove from the tins
• Enjoy!

This recipe is a good quinoa breakfast muffin 'base' recipe.
Not a fan of pepper - try diced, pre-cooked broccoli, grated zucchini or tomatoes instead.
You really can add whatever vegetable into these as you wish or have in the fridge.
To make these fancier - you can cook them inside 'ham breakfast muffin cups'.
Want to make them spicy - toss in some hot sauce and spicy BBQ rub seasoning.
They are also excellent to freeze and will keep in the fridge two-three days.

Practical little buggers! Martha would like that.

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2
Taste: 2
Ease: 1 (this would be a 2 if you have pre-cooked quinoa and pre-cooked ham at hand)