Quinoa Veggie and Sausage Stuffing

 

My favorite dish for Thanksgiving is stuffing.  I really love the stuff (no pun intended - ha!ha!).  These days I am trying my hardest to do the low-carb thing.  It's certainly not easy during the holidays.  I made a promise to myself at the beginning of this month that I was going to try to make a low-carb friendly version of stuffing.

So I thought of my favorite sausage and bread stuffing and went from there.  I knew I could keep the sausage, but the bread had to definitely go.  Next, I went to my favorite go to low carb vegetables- cauliflower and zucchini to help fill out the stuffing.  Then, I realized that I still needed a sort of grain to help pull everything together and that's when quinoa entered the picture.  

I was never a big quinoa fan until recently.  I finally learned how to cook it right so make sure to check out my "How to cook quinoa perfectly" post before making this dish.   The rest of the dish is full of the regular stuffing ingredients like celery, onions, poultry seasoning, thyme and sage.   I made this dish a few days ago and did a test run of it with my family before I took it to the big family Thanksgiving celebration at the end of this month.  It was a home-run with my husband, daughter and myself.  I can't give my son's opinion since he still refuses to eat quinoa.  I'm going to get him to like it someday....

I hope you like my idea of a low-carb friendly stuffing. Now, I'm all ready to get "stuffed" full of stuffing on Thanksgiving Day.  I can't wait!

Ingredients:
3 cups cooked quinoa (see recipe here)
1 large head cauliflower cut into small pieces
3 stalks celery chopped
1 large onion diced
2-3 medium sized zucchini diced
1lb lean sausage browned well
1 tsp granulated garlic
salt and black pepper (to taste)
2 tsp poultry seasoning (or more to taste)
1 heaping Tbs fresh sage minced
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
red chili flakes (to taste)
1/2 cup chicken stock

Directions:
1. Cook quinoa and set aside.  
2. Then brown sausage.  Remove sausage from pan and leave 2-3 Tbs of sausage dripping in pan for vegetables (or add oil if needed). 
3. Saute the cut vegetables with a little salt and black pepper. When vegetables are softening, add poultry seasoning, fresh thyme, sage, granulated garlic and red chili flakes.  Saute for a few more minutes then add browned sausage back to pan.  
4.  Finally add quinoa and chicken stock and mix all together.  Adjust seasoning as needed.  Serve hot.  Enjoy.

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