Shannon’s Stewed Okra and Tomatoes over Gluten-free Quinoa

When I think about how to prepare okra, only two ways come to mind. Coincidentally, they’re the ways my grandmothers used to make it: Fried and in a big ‘ole bowl of gumbo, yum! Well tonight I was forced to play around and think of a new way to cook okra. It was too late to start some gumbo and my cheat meal for the week isn't until the weekend so fried was out too. This recipe was inspired by Simply Recipes but I’m always tweaking recipes so here’s what I did. Enjoy!

Shannon’s Stewed Okra and Tomatoes over Gluten-free Quinoa

What you'll need: 

• 1 medium onion, diced
• ½ cup diced red bell pepper (leftover from another recipe from the night before – score!)
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced (we used roasted garlic that we had made previously)
• 3/4 pound fresh okra, cut into ½ in pieces (slice on the bias to create diagonal pieces)
• 1 jalapeño, diced
• 2 red tomatoes, chopped
• 2 yellow tomatoes, chopped
• 3-5 cute little cherry tomatoes, chopped
• 5 Tbsp canola oil
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2-3 tsp cumin (to taste)

Ready? Let’s cook!

Heat 3 tablespoons of the vegetable oil in a large sauté pan, when the oil is hot, sauté the onion, jalapeño, red pepper for 3-4 minutes over low-medium heat. Add salt to make the onion sweat to get it going. Add the garlic and sauté for another 3-5 minutes or until vegetables are soft. 

Make sure that your okra is sliced diagonally so that as much of the interior of the okra as possible is exposed to ensure thorough cooking. Add the remaining oil to another pan or skillet and bring up to very high heat to get it smoking hot.

Here's my smoking hot pan!

Add the diagonally-sliced okra to the pan (I put a splash guard on top quickly after so that I didn’t have a huge splatter mess to clean up afterwards). Let the okra brown for at least a minute before you move them around, you’re trying to cook them at a very high heat without moving it too much. The high heat cuts down on the gooiness that okra oozes. Sear for about 3-5 minutes, but stirring only 2-3 times, just enough not to burn, then lower heat to medium and cook for 3 additional minutes.

Add the tomatoes to the vegetable sauté pan cook for about 5 more minutes, or until tomatoes are soft. 

Add the vegetables to the okra pan/skillet and stir until uniform. Turn heat to low/simmer.

Cook gluten-free quinoa according to package directions. Quinoa only takes about 10 minutes, so you can stare at pan of your mouth-watering vegetable medley until quinoa is done.

Plate and enjoy! But you already knew that, right? Don’t forget to package up the leftovers! This fed my family of 5 and we still have enough for lunch tomorrow!

After you’ve made it, comment below and tell me how you liked it! Did you tweak the recipe too? What did you do differently?