As I try to avoid gluten, I’ve been looking for stuffing recipes that don’t call for bread. I came up with this quinoa stuffing on my own. This dish’s apple and raisin richness complements the baked yams well. I hope others will find it as entertaining as I did.
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 55 mins |
| Additional Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 45 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- ¼ cup uncooked quinoa
- ½ cup water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 small apples – peeled, cored and chopped
- ¼ cup raisins
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
- 4 mushrooms, chopped
- 2 tablespoons white wine
- 1 (1 pound) pork tenderloin
- 1 pinch ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch garam masala, or to taste
- salt and ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender, and the water has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.
- Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir the onion, garlic, apples, raisins, pine nuts, and mushrooms until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 8 minutes. Stir in the white wine, and cook another minute until the liquid has evaporated. Combine the apple mixture and quinoa until evenly mixed; set aside.
- Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
- Cut the pork tenderloin from one side through the middle horizontally to within one-half inch of the other side. Open the two sides and spread them out like an open book. Place between two sheets of heavy plastic (resealable freezer bags work well) on a solid, level surface. Firmly pound the tenderloin with the smooth side of a meat mallet to a thickness of 1/2 inch.
- Season the tenderloin on both sides with cinnamon, garam masala, salt, and black pepper. Spoon the quinoa filling onto the tenderloin, then roll up and secure with kitchen twine or toothpicks. Place onto a roasting pan.
- Roast in the preheated oven until the pork is no longer pink in the center, about 35 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the filling should read 145 degrees F (63 degrees C). Cover with aluminum foil, and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.
- For the wine used in cooking (and for drinking with the meal) I like a gewurtztraminer because it is sweet and fruity which will suit the stuffing.
- If you wish you can make a sauce from the drippings of the pork as long as you have not used a glass baking dish. To do this, remove the pork from the baking pan and cover with foil. Put the non-glass pan directly onto the stove and add a splash of wine, some chicken stock, and heat through while scraping up the brown bits. You may choose to thicken with cornstarch or allow to reduce to a saucy consistency.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 282 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 21 g |
| Cholesterol | 49 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 21 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 44 mg |
| Sugars | 9 g |
| Fat | 13 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Delicious recipe! Followed all recommendations but excluded the pine nuts.
Novice cook here so it took longer to prep for me but can see where it will get much easier over time. I don’t like garlic at all but my wife does so I just sprinkled a bit of garlic salt over the onion/apple/pine nuts as it was in the pan. This was delicious and has been added to my list of “Dinners Dave Makes”, which was embarrassingly small. Using this website to increase the list!!
It was delcious and pretty easy to make.
I always try to make recipes as they are written; I think it’s only fair. With that said, I was disappointed with this one. I found the quinoa mixture to be bland. Should have had some seasonings in it. The pork should have also been seasoned beyond a “pinch” as well, as salt and pepper can only go so far.
Wow! This recipe wasn’t good….it was delicious! Made it exactly how it was written!!
This recipe was very easy to follow. I’m a big fan of quinoa and was looking for different ways to add it to my meal. We made the pork tenderloin as close to the recipe as we could get it to be. The only difference is we added prunes instead of raisins and pecans instead of pine nuts since we didn’t have any of both at home. We also did what another reviewer did and substituted the garam masala with nutmeg. And we smeared a little bit of apple butter on the outside of the pork tenderloin after we wrapped it. We tried the quinoa stuffing mix before adding it to the pork tenderloin and felt it needed some salt, so we added a little into it as well. Overall, the pork tenderloin came out wonderful and moist. We will definitely be using this recipe again!
Yum! This was so good and even though it took some time it was super easy to make! I made exactly as recipe said but added a pinch of cayenne seasoning to the quinoa mixture. Do not cook any longer than 35 min it was plenty done. I served with green beans and apple sauce.
I didn’t think this was good at all.
Very good and fancy. Took a bit of time though.
Stuffing was very good but could not stuff much into the roll.will make again
I have been wanting to cook with quinoa and this was my first attempt. I thought this would be a good way to get reluctant family members to try it. They all raved about it. Serve with applesauce. Yummy.
A little time consuming but well worth it!!
Super tasty and easy to make. Loved it!
By far the most adventurous, yet easy thing I’ve prepared. It turned out beautiful and the family was very impressed. I added craisins instead of raisins and also some cayenne and jalapenos because we are spice-lovers here. I also used a meat thermometer because I was slightly worried about cooking the pork fully, but the recipe’s time was right in line with what the meat thermometer read. CAMEAL, you rock! This is my all-time favorite recipe!
This was excellent! Highly recommend.
Sooooo good! The stuffing was amazing even on it’s own!
I was a little skeptical of the ingredients, but this was so easy and good! I didn’t have mushrooms on hand so I replaced them with black currants. Delicious.
This is great! The only thing different I did was use a pinch if nutmeg in place of the garam masala (simply because we didn’t have any) and omitted the mushrooms (again, we didn’t have any). Oh, and I doubled the garlic because we love garlic! Even my teenager had seconds! This recipe will definitely be used again! Yum!!