
A few months ago, due to some questionable reading comprehension, I accidentally ordered a two-pound bag of puffed quinoa to be delivered to my door. While normally two pounds is nothing special, puffed quinoa weighs practically nothing, so the sack that arrived was so big it would have fit snugly in a standard pillowcase. I was determined to get through all of it before it went stale, which kicked off a period of puffed quinoa experimentation that, I have to assume, makes me America’s foremost authority on ways the ingredient can be used. I knew there’d be some misses along the way (on top of spaghetti: not a good call), but I didn’t expect to discover quite so many hits.
Puffed quinoa is the result of heating and agitating raw quinoa until it pops, transforming each seed into a light, crispy morsel. If you’ve ever made popcorn before, you’ll recognize the process; while corn gets all the glory, nearly every whole grain (and pseudocereal, like quinoa, amaranth, or buckwheat) can be “popped” the same way—and yield just as delightful a result, though significantly smaller in size. Puffed quinoa specifically looks like shrink-rayed Kix cereal, round and light as air, with a toasted, nutty flavor that makes it a great addition to sweet and savory dishes alike.
I love puffed quinoa as a granola component, toasted on a sheet pan along with oats and nuts. I love it as a cookie dough mix-in, where it provides a bit of crispy lightness to every bite. I use it liberally as a green salad topper, grain bowl element, and a finishing touch for cooked vegetable dishes, either straight from the bag or dressed up in a pan with a bit of olive oil and spice. It makes a delightful sprinkle on chocolate bark or layered toffee, adding a Hershey’s Krackel-like texture and spotty appearance. And of course, in lieu of puffed rice cereal, it makes a bangin’ quinoa crispy treat.
While it’s absolutely possible to puff your own grains at home—using the same method you would to pop popcorn on the stove—I prefer to buy the pre-puffed stuff, like the quinoa linked below (don’t worry, I triple-checked: It’s only a six-ounce bag). The commercial process, which utilizes precise amounts of pressure and steam, creates a much crispier product than I could in my apartment, and doesn’t require that I pick out all the tiny, still-hard kernels that never popped from the bottom of a pot. Keeping a bag on my pantry shelf, albeit a much smaller one than the original, means that I am ready to gussy up a scoop of ice cream or plate of roasted vegetables at a moment’s notice; the crispy, crunchy, nutty nibbles upgrade any meal of the day, from breakfast to dessert.