Warm Quinoa Plate with Ricotta and Dandelion Greens
Hot quinoa tossed with garlicky wilted dandelion greens and edamame, spooned over whipped lemon ricotta and finished with toasted almonds and mint.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
This is the plate I put together on a weekday when I want something warm that is not a stew. It takes about forty minutes if you are cooking the quinoa from scratch, and closer to fifteen if you already have some in the refrigerator, which is the main reason I cook a big pot of it on Sundays. The idea is simple and it works every time: something hot and savory over something cool and creamy, with a bitter green running through it to keep the whole thing from going soft and sweet.
The ricotta is the part people underestimate. Whipped for a minute with lemon zest and a little of the juice, it goes from grainy and stiff to loose and almost pourable, and spread on the plate first it acts as the sauce. Hot quinoa piled on top warms the surface of it and melts it slightly at the contact points while the rest stays cool. If you stir the ricotta through the grain instead, you get something entirely different and much less interesting, so keep the two apart until they meet on the plate.
Dandelion greens are genuinely bitter, and that is the point rather than a problem to be solved. Garlic sliced into hot oil, a fast wilt, and a squeeze of lemon are enough to round the edges off without losing the character. If you have never cooked them, start with a smaller bunch and know that they shrink to about a third of what you started with. Edamame goes in at the very end so it stays bright and firm, which gives the plate something to bite against everything else.
Ingredients
- 3 1/4 cups cooked quinoa (from about 1 cup dry), hot
- 1 cup part-skim ricotta
- 1 bunch dandelion greens (about 7 oz), tough stem ends trimmed, cut into 2-inch lengths
- 1 1/2 cups shelled edamame, thawed if frozen
- 1/3 cup raw almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced
- 2 tbsp fresh mint leaves, torn
- 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Whip the ricotta: Put the ricotta in a bowl with the lemon zest, a teaspoon of the lemon juice, and a pinch of the salt, and beat it hard with a fork or a small whisk for a full minute. It will go from stiff and curdled-looking to smooth and loose, closer to a thick yogurt. Set it aside at room temperature, since cold ricotta stiffens up again the moment the hot grain lands on it.
- Toast the almonds and sesame: Put the almonds in a dry skillet over medium and shake them for four minutes, until they smell nutty and the cut faces are gold. Add the sesame seeds for the last minute, shaking constantly until they start to hop. Tip both onto a board, cool briefly, and roughly chop the almonds.
- Wash the greens properly: Dandelion greens hold grit deep in the base of the leaves. Swish them in a sink of cold water, lift them out rather than pouring them out, because pouring tips the grit you just rinsed loose straight back over the leaves, and repeat until no sand settles at the bottom. Shake them dry and cut into 2-inch lengths.
- Wilt the greens with garlic: Heat the olive oil in a wide skillet over medium and add the sliced garlic. Cook for ninety seconds, until it turns pale gold at the edges but no further, since sliced garlic goes from sweet to acrid in the space of a few seconds. Add the greens with the rest of the salt and the black pepper, and toss with tongs for two minutes, until they have collapsed and turned dark but still hold their shape.
- Fold in the quinoa and edamame: Add the hot quinoa and the edamame to the pan and toss everything together over the heat for two minutes, just long enough to warm the beans through and let the grain pick up the garlic oil. Take the pan off the burner and squeeze in the rest of the lemon juice.
- Build the plates: Spread a quarter of the whipped ricotta across the base of each of four wide plates, using the back of a spoon to make a shallow well. Pile the hot quinoa and greens over it, then scatter the almonds, sesame seeds, and torn mint over the top and serve at once.
Variations
- Farro or barley: Swap the quinoa for cooked farro or barley, both of which give you a chewier plate and stand up better to the bitter greens.
- Blistered tomatoes: Blister a cup of cherry tomatoes in the pan before the garlic goes in and fold them through at the end for sweetness and juice.
- Chickpeas: Use a drained can of chickpeas in place of the edamame, crisped in the oil for a few minutes before the greens go in.
- Chili and lemon: Add a pinch of cayenne to the garlic oil and double the lemon zest for a sharper, hotter version of the same plate.
- Herb heavy: Use a mix of mint, parsley, and dill rather than mint alone, stirred through the grain off the heat so it stays raw and green.
Storage & Leftovers
The quinoa and greens keep four days in a sealed container in the refrigerator, and the whipped ricotta keeps three in its own container. Store them separately. Ricotta stirred into warm grain and then chilled goes grainy and weeps liquid, and there is no bringing it back once that happens.
Reheat the grain mixture in a skillet over medium for three or four minutes with a splash of water, or in the microwave in short bursts. Spread fresh ricotta on the plate cold and pile the hot grain over it exactly as you did the first time. The contrast is most of the pleasure here.
The grain and greens freeze for up to two months in flat sealed portions, though the edamame softens noticeably. Thaw overnight and reheat in a pan. Do not freeze the ricotta at all, since it separates on thawing into curds and water and will not whip back together.
Notes & Tips
- Whip the ricotta longer than you think: A full minute of hard beating changes the texture completely. Thirty seconds gives you stirred ricotta, which is not the same thing at all.
- Lift the greens out of the water: Pouring a sink of water through a colander drops all the grit you just released straight back onto the leaves. Lift them out with your hands instead.
- Do not brown the garlic: Pale gold is the target. Sliced garlic taken past that turns bitter, and you have quite enough bitterness on this plate already.
- Use the quinoa hot: The heat of the grain is what softens the ricotta underneath. Cold quinoa gives you two cold things sitting next to each other.
- Toast the nuts and seeds separately: Almonds need about four minutes and sesame seeds about one. Started together, the seeds are black by the time the almonds are ready.
- Salt in two places: A pinch in the ricotta and a pinch on the greens seasons both. All of it in one place leaves half the plate tasting flat.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Ricotta, quinoa, edamame, and almonds each carry part of the load here. The cheese and the beans bring most of the protein, the quinoa gives the plate its bulk, and the almonds and sesame seeds add the crunch along with a good deal of the calcium.
- Ricotta is made from the whey left behind in cheesemaking, which is why it is soft and mild rather than sharp, and it carries calcium and protein in a form that whips loose with nothing more than a fork and some lemon.
- Dandelion greens are one of the more bitter leaves you can buy, and that bitterness is worth seeking out. They bring calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin K, and the compounds behind the bitter taste are the same ones traditionally associated with stimulating digestion.
- Edamame are young soybeans, which is why they stay bright green and firm rather than going soft like a dried bean. They bring plant protein and fiber together, and the pop of them against soft grain is half the reason they are here.
- Toasted almonds and sesame seeds do more than decorate the top. Both are dense in calcium and vitamin E, and four minutes in a dry pan is what turns them from merely crunchy into properly nutty.
- As you eat, drag each forkful through the ricotta and notice how the bitterness of the greens softens against it, and let the plate cool a little in front of you rather than eating it at full speed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Dandelion greens are too bitter for me. What else works?
Escarole is the gentlest step down and behaves the same way in the pan. Mustard greens are sharp in a different direction, more peppery than bitter. Kale is the mildest option and needs about four minutes rather than two.
Can I use whole-milk ricotta?
Yes, and it whips even smoother. Part-skim holds its shape a little better on the plate under hot grain, which is why I default to it here. Either way, buy the kind sold in a tub with a short ingredient list rather than the stabilized sort.
Can I make the whole thing ahead?
Make the components ahead, not the plate. Cook the quinoa and whip the ricotta up to three days out, wash and cut the greens the night before. Then the pan work is five minutes and the plate goes together hot, which is when it is at its best.
My quinoa came out mushy. What should I change?
Rinse it in a fine sieve first, use one and three quarter cups of water to one cup of grain rather than the two the package suggests, and let it sit off the heat under the lid for ten minutes before fluffing. Stirring it while it cooks is what breaks the grains open.