Roasted Vegetables, Chickpeas and Pesto Quinoa with Spirulina

Many people are choosing to include more vegetarian and vegan dishes into their daily diets. People on vegetarian diets generally have lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure and a reduced risk of heart disease compared to their meat-eating counterparts. Roasted Vegetables, Chickpeas and Pesto Quinoa is a hearty meal that can be served for dinner. We’ve upped the nutritional value of this recipe by adding Organika Organic Spirulina Powder to the pesto.

Spirulina is a blue-green algae, grown in alkaline water, that has been used as a dietary supplement around the world. Organika Organic Spirulina Powder has many nutritional ingredients including beta-carotene, iron and protein.

Another super healthy ingredient in this recipe is quinoa. I have recently begun incorporating more quinoa into my diet. I like its nutty taste and I don’t find it as filling as rice. Quinoa contains a whopping 8 grams of protein per cup, which is higher than any other grain, so this is another reason to add it to your diet. Quinoa also wins over brown rice in that it contains all of the essential amino acids while brown rice does not. (Sprouted brown rice also contains every essential amino acid.)

I roasted the vegetables and chickpeas on parchment paper placed on a pan. This makes cleaning up so easy. Just throw the parchment paper away once you’re done and wipe the pan.

When it was time to prepare the pesto, I relied on the Braun PureMix Blender. First, I ground the almonds in my Braun coffee grinder, then I added all of the ingredients including the chopped basil, parmesan, ground almonds, Organika Organic Spirulina Powder and Extra Virgin Olive Oil to the blender on the Puree setting. The resulting pesto was smooth.

Let me know in the comments whether you make this recipe and what you think of it.