A few months ago I published a recipe for a low FODMAP Mexican spiced quinoa bake. In that post I promised more flavour combinations and today I am bringing them! First up: this Italian baked quinoa. It’s vegetarian, gluten free, easily low FODMAP and easily vegan.

Italian baked quinoa

First off: of course this is not a traditional Italian recipe. There are only so many characters one can dedicate to a recipe name and this was the most succinct option.

This quinoa bake is packed full of delicious vegetarian and Italian flavours.

The quinoa is thoroughly rinsed and then baked in a flavoursome combination of ingredients. Oil, red wine vinegar, a bit of maple syrup and some Calabrian chillies form the liquid flavour base of the dish.

Next, sun-dried tomatoes, (optional) anchovies, dried thyme and/or oregano, chopped leek greens and pickled garlic (which is low FODMAP) add layer upon layer of flavour. Canned and rinsed cannellini beans add protein along with the rinsed quinoa. After the bake is nearly finished, a hefty dose of Tuscan kale is stirred through.

Finally, the bake is finished with plenty of parmesan and fresh herbs.

It’s a comforting, rich and simple dish that is almost akin to a quinoa risotto. It is a hug in a bowl that is equally at home as a main meal, a side dish or a wholesome lunch.

Ingredient notes and substitutions

This dish is not necessarily designed to be low FODMAP but it is with a few easy swaps. If you’re not low FODMAP, great! Read on.

You’re welcome to use regular garlic in place of pickled garlic if you’re not low FODMAP. You could also use chopped onion in place of the leek greens.

This recipe is very amenable to using what you have on hand. My original Mexican quinoa bake used lemons, so you could experiment with using those instead of red wine vinegar.

The dried thyme and/or oregano could easily be replaced with Italian seasoning, if that’s what you have.

Calabrian chillies are optional but on theme. If you don’t have them, some chopped red chilli or even chilli flakes would likely work in it’s place.

If you’re not a kale person, you could replace it with radicchio or rocket. I’d recommend adding by sight and add the end of baking, rather than when the kale is added in the recipe.

Basil adds a lovely fresh finish here, but you could also use flat leaf parsley.

Vegetarian parmesan does exist, whether or not it should. If you need the parmesan to be vegetarian be sure to read the labels. I have a list of vegetarian parmesan brands in Australia here.

FODMAP notes for your Italian baked quinoa

This Italian baked quinoa is nearly Low FODMAP, but there are a few tweaks to be made if you need it to be truly low FODMAP.

First, the sun-dried tomatoes. This recipe uses 25g and a low FODMAP serve is 8g. This keeps the fructose content down.

Canned cannellini beans are low FODMAP in 76g serves. This bake contains approximately 240g (a 400g can of beans, thoroughly rinsed and drained). This means each serve contains approximately 60g of beans.

Tuscan kale is low FODMAP in 75g serves. However, it doesn’t become moderate for GOS until it exceeds serves of 220g. This bake uses 150-200g kale. This means that one serve of the dish contains approximately 37.5-50g kale.

The reason I bring these two up is that they contain the same FODMAP – GOS. Although I don’t think that combining the two creates an excessive GOS content, it is worth mentioning.

To lower the GOS content you could use collard greens instead of kale. I don’t have much experience with cooking them, but if they are hardy like kale, add them at the same time as you’d add the kale. You could also experiment with adding spinach, rocket/arugula or radicchio at the end (don’t bake them as you would with the kale).

Another option is to use vegetables instead, as with my Mexican quinoa bake. See that recipe for tips (you’ll need to add hard vegetables like pumpkin and carrot at the start).

If you’d like to use kale, you could lower the GOS content by substituting the beans with grated tofu or your protein of choice. You could also simply omit the beans.

A note on pickled garlic

Pickled garlic is a new ingredient to the Monash FODMAP app. It is low FODMAP in 1 clove (3g) serves. However, it doesn’t become moderate for fructose until it exceeds 30g (10 clove) serves. This is such a great little ingredient for those of us who miss garlic.

Because garlic has food safety considerations, I haven’t yet tested a version of my own.

I have bought pickled garlic at IGA, at an Italian grocer and in the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern section of the supermarket. I highly recommend sourcing some if you can.

Recipe tips

I recommend using the biggest baking dish you have. It is annoying to try and stir the kale into the mixture in a baking dish that barely contains the quinoa.

This is more of a risotto type dish than a quinoa salad. I suspect the starch content of the beans works to create a more risotto style texture.

I use the less woody kale stalks as well as the leaves. Once cooked, they add a textural element to the dish.

Be sure to wash the kale thoroughly and wash the leek greens EXTREMELY thoroughly. You would be absolutely amazed at how much dirt leek greens retain. Take the whole thing apart and wash every layer as I almost guarantee there will be dirt even in the inner core leaves.

More quinoa recipes

• Quinoa wraps (gluten free, vegan option)
• Low FODMAP granola bars (gluten free and vegan)
• Gluten free, low FODMAP ANZAC biscuits
• Roast pumpkin quinoa salad
• Gluten free dumpling wrappers without rice flour