Quinoa Dessert Bites Recipe
I remember growing up, my mom would always put homemade treats in my lunch for school. A lot of my friends would have hostess treats,or other store bought treats, and in my little 7 year old mind I was so jealous! It isn’t until I have looked back as an adult that I realize how lucky I really was! Homemade desserts are not only super delicious and way more filling, but they can contain quality ingredients and you can really pump up the nutrition.
This quinoa dessert bites recipe is packed with nutrition, but have a touch of added sweetness making them the perfect treat for a school lunch, after school snack, or even after dinner dessert! Quinoa not only provides fiber, and vitamins and minerals, but also protein making these little bites super filling! We added fruit for some bonus nutrients and also a natural sweetness.
Combine all your ingredients in a medium bowl, excluding the eggs. We used chopped apple and shredded coconut in ours, but you can really use any fruit! Once it is mixed together, add your beaten eggs and mix until combined. Using a cookie scoop, place a small amount into each compartment of a mini muffin tin. Muffin tins are such a great kitchen tool to use to make all sorts of different things. Sweet and savory, they make a perfect portion for kids, or for adults too! We use mini muffin tins for more decadent foods like these quinoa dessert bites, and the regular muffin tins for things like Breakfast Egg Cups. Place in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes. Once they are baked, allow to cool and dip in chocolate.
These make the perfect size treat for a little mouth, but are delicious enough to eat two! We love to be able to have snacks like these on hand those hectic times when you don’t have a lot of time to whip something up. Packing lunches in the morning and right after school are both times that are a little crazier and so doing a little meal prep makes your life so much less stressful when it comes to healthy food!
Quinoa Dessert Bites Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup Quinoa, cooked
- 1 cup oats, dry
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1/2 cup, quartered or chopped apple
- 1/2 cup coconut flakes
- 2 large egg
- 1/2 cup baking chocolate, unsweetened, squares
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, add your cooked quinoa, oats, and chopped fruit. In a separate smaller mixing bowl, combine your cinnamon, sugar and salt. Add the spice mixture to the quinoa and oats. Stir in your chopped fruit. Once combined add the eggs, and mix just until combined.
- Scoop into a sprayed mini muffin tin, making sure the pan is thoroughly sprayed.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, and let cool
- Place chocolate squares in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on low 2-3 minutes until melted.
- Dip the dessert bites in chocolate and place on parchment paper to cool.
Nutrition
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Natalie Monson
I'm a registered dietitian, mom of 4, avid lover of food and strong promoter of healthy habits. Here you will find lots of delicious recipes full of fruits and veggies, tips for getting your kids to eat better and become intuitive eaters and lots of resources for feeding your family.
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Just wondering if you could:
1. Mix in chocolate chips instead of putting chocolate on the outside?
2. Make them as cookies instead of bites?
Thanks! They look yummy!
What can i substitute for eggs? I usually substitute eggs with flaxseed powder and water. Would it work for this?
For savory dishes, I cook my quinoa in chicken broth to improve flavor. Any ideas on what to cook it in for sweet dishes like this?
You could try orange juice or water with orange zest
I always cook it with CINNAMON sticks and orange zest.
What could be substituted for coconut? My son doesn’t like. Thanks
What can i substitute for eggs? I usually substitute eggs with flaxseed powder and water. Would it work for this?
Did you store these in an air tight container? Or would they last longer if stored in the refrigerator?
So I made these and a few issues I came across, maybe you have suggestions on how to fix them?
– I didn’t have mini muffin tins so i used regular sized muffin tins. some were larger then others and i found the smaller ones stayed together better then the large ones.
– i put the chocolate chips INSIDE the “bites” too see if that would make them bind together a little better but not that well
but the taste of them was awesome .. my 6yr old son LOVES them
Lovely! I will make these soon! Only change for me as a vegan would be to use flax or chia seeds soaked in water as the egg substitute (1 T. seeds to 3 T. water). Extra nutrition too!
These look amazing!
How well would these hold up if they were baked in a pan and cut into bars when still warm?
These look amazing!
How well would these hold up if they were baked in a pan and cut into bars when still warm?
I would use some mashed ripe banana. You just need the egg in this recipe to hold the ingredients together.
Would you be willing to come back and share if that worked well for you? I’d be interested in making them vegan as well.
These look yum, im wondering what could be used in place of the sugar if we’re avoiding sugar? Mashed banana for sweetness, or a fruit puree? Has anyone tried anything? Thanks 🙂
I put the chocolate chips in before baking. They were the only yummy thing about these. Sorry 🙁 Sounded good but my family didn’t care for them at all. They all broke apart also.
I’ll have to agree with you. Not much flavor, and they did fall apart easily making them not fun to eat. Neither of my children (or hubby) liked these. 🙁
Hey Natalie this sounds like an absolutely amazing recipe. I’ve been doing my best to lower my sugar levels. Do you think this would taste as good if you replaced the brown sugar with stevia?
Hi Justin. We don’t use stevia very often, but I think it would substitute just great. I’m not sure the ratio you would want to use though.
I would like to incorporate more quinoa into my snacks and things but am unsure how to use it. Does this quinoa come already cooked or do you get it raw and then cook it?? Is it flakes? And lastly – how do you cook it?? : ) Thanks – keen to try this one out!!
Lee
You buy the quinoa in a dry form like rice or couscous, you then boil almost equal parts water to quinoa, so I use 1 1/4 cups of water to 1 cup of quinoa.. for this use only water, but if you wanted to make it tasty for supper, you could add chicken stock in equal amounts as water then you have a quinoa that substitutes say rice or couscous for a grain for your meal.. cook lots and eat for a few days keep refrigerated after its cooked.. its a protein and a grain. I love this grain. good luck.
I just made these with strawberries, so they were like chocolate covered strawberries YUM!!!
These look so good. I cook with quinoa all the time but have never baked with it. Thanks for the inspiration!
I made these with 1c mashed banana instead of the eggs and left out the sugar. Delicious! I also used apples and raisins for fruit. They stayed together great.
Is there a way to start adding a nutritional “label”. I often use your recipes for my fitness challenge groups but they want and need to know what they are eating. Like calories per serving, fat, sodium, sugar and protein. This would be a BIG help!!! Thank you!!!!
All the recipes we add to our membership site has the calories, fat, carbs, fiber, and sugar. You can see more details here:
https://www.superhealthykids.com/meal-plan-memberships/
The other recipes we post for our blog can be calculated at http://nutritiondata.self.com/
Made these exactly as directed and they are AWESOME!! My kids love them and so do I ! I especially love how healthy they are !
We analyze all of our meal plan recipes for nutrition data! You can check out our meal plans here:
https://www.superhealthykids.com/subscribe.php
Is the fruit dried?
Made these tonight. Daughter really liked the taste! I had the same trouble with them crumbling though. Wondering if anyone had success with keeping them together and what the secret was. Thanks for sharing!
By any chance were we supposed to use “instant oats” rather than normal oats? I used oats as per the recipe but the quinoa bites are chewy and not crunchy … I expected a bit crunchy after baking the bites and due to the oats being uncooked. Please advise.
Thanks for your amazing recipes!
Oh so to get the nutrition content I need to buy a subscription? Okay thanks anyway! Maybe some day once my client base gets larger and I have a few coaches who could use the information too.
Jana
You can also analyze recipes using this tool here:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/mynd/myrecipes/welcome?returnto=/mynd/myrecipes
I used regular rolled oats, but you can definitely use instant if it was a problem for you 🙂
I just made these but I used 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa and did the evaporation method of cooking so ended up being more than a cup when cooked, I also used a cup of dried organic apricots chopped in small pieces. They stayed together and we’re easy to dip in the chocolate, all the family loves them including my fussy 3 yr old…very yummy
These are great! My kids love them. If a batch doesn’t stay together very well you can crumble them on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for 5-8 more minutes and it makes great granola 😉 thanks for the recipe!
No – my apples were fresh 🙂
We don’t use stevia much, but I would assume they would still taste great! There are a lot of other flavors going on in this recipe.
I’m sure they would work out just fine that way.
Thanks for responding! 🙂
We stored ours in the refrigerator which I think helped them from drying out.
Is it a more crunchy texture or chewy bc mine were chewy I cooked them for 20 minutes. Just wondering taste was good just expected a cruchier texter.
Ours were more on the chewy side than crunchy 🙂
This looks good like to try this
Made these tonight, I doubled the cinnamon and added half a mashed banana (along with the cup of apple and coconut). I still wasn’t sure they would hold together so I added a TB of PB-why not! These stayed together great, I’ll drizzle the chocolate tomorrow. 🙂
Delish! I love this recipe. I omitted the sugar and added one mashed banana and about 1/4 cup of mashed, soaked prunes. For the fruit I added 1/2 cup juice sweetened cranberries and 1/2 cup coconut. The texture was perfect!
These look great, but my celiac daughter can’t tolerate even pure oats. I am going to try them with pure quinoa flakes (instead of cooked quinoa), and maybe some add-ins like the mashed banana some people are mentioning. Fingers crossed they work out. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has tried something similar and how it went.
Could these be frozen?
Added choc chips on top after cooking and put in oven a few minutes to melt. Spray pan well for easy removal.
Such a great snack/dessert! Healthy especially with dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate and satisfying
Made it into bars as another commenter suggested, adding chocolate chips.
I split the batch and added raisins to one batch and mini semi sweet chocolate chips to the other. I omitted the coconut. They are yummy
I added raisins and chipped chocolate, instead of coconut and spread out into a large rectangle. I then cut using pizza cutters. All of my family thoroughly enjoyed these!!
Sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing Lynsey.
Directions are missing the steps for making the chocolate squares dippable.
Thanks for catching this Matt! I’ve updated the recipe.
How many dessert bites does one batch make?
Hi Mary, the exact number of bites varies depending on how large you make them, but our recipe tester created 24 bites from the recipe as listed.
Add 1/4 cup peanut or almond butter! Instead of mixing in coconut, dip in coconut after chocolate as topping ?
I made it exactly as ordered and they were GREAT they didn’t fall apart at all of course I used mini muffin pan as stated. We loved them I thought I would like it better with the chocolate but I actually like them without just as much. They’re quick and easy and I’ll be making them again! Thank-You