Another healthy and delicious quinoa recipe! The combination of the salty cheese and olives with the sweet butternut squash is amazing! Easy to put together and looks quite attractive. This Mediterranean quinoa stuffed butternut squash is a great idea if you are having guests and you want to impress them with something a bit more interesting that doesn’t require too much effort. If you want to turn this meal into a vegan one, just skip the cheese and it will still be delicious!
I am not going to talk again about the health benefits of quinoa as I have already covered this in a couple of posts – the latest Easy Seafood Quinoa Paella recipe and also in the post about my simple quinoa Gluten-free Walnut brownie. Besides the great health benefits, I also love the fact that it’s much quicker to cook than rice for example!
In order to make room for your Mediterranean quinoa mix, you need to scoop out some of the flesh and seeds. The easiest way to do it is with an ice cream scoop, rather than a regular spoon.
Once you get the flesh out, save it to make something sweet with it. You can use it to make these decadent healthy No Bake Pumpkin cream chocolate cookies. Sometimes I just eat the cooked pumpkin/squash in a bowl with some cinnamon and honey, super sweet treat!
When you start preparing for this quinoa stuffed butternut squash recipe, the first thing to do is to put the two squash halves in a hot oven. By the time you are done preparing the veggie quinoa mix in the pan, your squash should be pretty much done baking. Once it’s soft you will be able to take the flesh out and distribute the cheesy quinoa mix. You get to serve a super delicious and easy vegetarian meal!
Ingredients
- 1 butternut squash
- 1/2 cubed courgette (zucchini)
- 1 chopped tomato
- 2/3 cup quinoa
- just above 1 cup hot water (2:1 water and quinoa)
- handful of black pitted olives
- 100 g cubed Feta (3.50 oz) (skip if vegan)
- 1/2 tbsp dried oregano
- grated Parmesan cheese (skip if vegan)
- extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Halve the butternut squash, arrange the two halves on a baking tray and sprinkle some salt and a few drops of olive oil. Cook in the oven for 30-35 minutes.
- While the squash is roasting, add a splash of olive oil to a pan and heat to a medium temperature. Add the courgette and cook for 3-4 minutes with the lid on until it softens.
- Add the oregano, tomatoes, olives and quinoa to the pan followed by the hot water. Add salt to taste. Cook for about 10-15 minutes until the water has evaporated and the quinoa is cooked. Turn off the heat and add the Feta cubes to the mix.
- Once your squash is done, scoop out the seeds and most of the flesh. Distribute the veggie quinoa mix evenly between the two halves.
- Sprinkle some grated Parmesan cheese on top and put back in the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.
This looks great! I love the mediterranean quinoa filling, it looks so delish. I have a couple of squash lying around right now, so I’ll be trying this sometime soon. Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks Katie, hope you like it! :)
Should the pan be covered while the quinoa mixture cooks?
Just while you are cooking the zucchini, once you add the water you don’t need to cover it. Hope this helps :)
Oh its such a great recipe.. how much grams are 2/3 cup of quinoa? there are somanydfferent meassurments in the word wide web :/ Sweet Greetz Lara
Hi Lara, I am glad you like the recipe! I always like to use cup measurements as you can use any cup and it’s easier to measure. I am not quite sure but I believe it should be around 110-115 g. Hope this helps! :)
I added some sausage to the quinoa mixture when I made it, and it was incredible! Thanks for the recipe!
You are very welcome Heather, glad you liked it :)
Hi. This looks great. I may be missing something, but I’m unsure what to do with the squash flesh after it’s scooped out. Do you mix it with the quinoa mixture, or is it not used?
Hi Roberta! You don’t use it as there isn’t going to be enough space for the quinoa mixture. However don’t throw it away, there are many pumpkin/squash recipes you can use it for like this salad. Hope this helps!
I’m also confused on this. I understand saving it but if the squash flesh isn’t used at all for this particular recipe is it just acting as a pretty little baking dish? In that case could I just prepare the inside filling and cook in a dish? Or do you leave a portion of the flesh? Thanks for any tips.
Hi Elizabeth, you scoop out some of the flesh to make room for the quinoa filling, but don’t remove all if it. The squash still needs to have layer of flesh on top of the skin, which absorbs the flavour of the quinoa mix and it just isn’t going to be the same if you bake them separately, but you can do that if you wish. It’s up to you how thick you want this layer to be, you can scoop out just a little bit to make room for some of the filling, but not all of it as you don’t want to be just left with the skin. Hope this helps, would love to know your feedback if you try it :)
Hello! I wanted to let you know that I’ve made this yummy recipe now 4 times. It’s become one of my new ‘go to’ meals, so thanks for sharing :)
Aw thank you so much for sharing this! I am glad you like it!
Does anyone know the nutrient value on this recipes? Calories ect?? I don’t seem to see it..
Hi Molly, I don’t include the calorie information because I think it often doesn’t properly emphasize how nutritious certain recipes are. If you are interested in knowing the calories you can use Calorie Count and just copy and paste the recipe there. Here is why I don’t count calories. Hope this helps! :)
I tried this last night, easy to cook and far better than I expected. We will be doing this again but will experiment with the ‘fillings’ maybe add in mushrooms and chorizo (for non veggies!)
Hi Gary, thanks I am glad you liked the recipe! Yes absolutely, you can use whatever ingredients you like :)
I have 2 different quinoa flavors, which one to you recommend?
Roasted Red Pepper and Basil? or Rosemary and Olive Oil with this?
Oh this is a difficult one! I really can’t decide, I think both would go really well as they have a Mediterranean flavour. :)