Sweet Potato Quinoa Bake Recipe
Sometimes a warm comforting all-in-one meal is the best dinner solution. This Sweet Potato Quinoa Bake Recipe combines sweet and hearty sweet potatoes with the wholesome and filling goodness of quinoa.
This warm, comforting casserole will be a hit with your family!
We love this recipe because it calls for leeks which are more mild than an onion, but still provide the savory flavor that is delicious in a dish like this. The only tricky thing about leeks is cleaning them. This is one easy method to cleaning leeks that we used in our yummy minestrone recipe. They are different enough from onions, that they may not have a bad rap with your kids and they might be willing to try them!
How to Make It
Combine your ingredients, toss it in a 9×13 and bake! You will have dinner on the table with time to spare. I love recipes like this because the hands on time is so short, but you still prepared a meal that is comforting, and delicious.
When I make meals like this one, I sometimes like to switch out the veggies to mix it up. We used sweet potatoes for this recipe, but I think it would also be good with broccoli or asparagus. It is a good way to get your kids to try different veggies with one recipe! Also – we really like the white sharp white cheddar. It is basically the exact same thing as sharp cheddar, but without the food dyes! We buy ours at Costco. It gives this dish added flavor and you don’t need to add as much as a mild cheddar cheese.
This is a meal that is great when you don’t have a lot of hands on time for dinner. Serve alongside some yummy fresh fruit and you have a complete dinner for your family!
Ingredients
- 1 cup chicken broth, low-sodium
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup flour, all-purpose
- 1 tablespoon seasoned salt
- 2 cup sweet potato
- 1/2 pound chicken breast
- 3/4 cup quinoa, uncooked
- 1/2 cup leek
- 1/3 cup pesto
- 3/4 cup cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a medium saucepan, whisk together chicken broth and flour until smooth. Cook over high heat for 1 minute. Add the milk and seasoning and cook for 3-5 minutes until thickened.
- Cut up sweet potato and chicken into small bite size pieces. Chop leeks into small pieces.
- In a large bowl, combine the sauce with the quinoa, chicken, leeks, sweet potato, and pesto. Pour into a 9×13 baking dish. Top with shredded cheese and bake for 40-50 minutes covered, until the quinoa is soft and the chicken and sweet potatoes are cooked through.
Nutrition
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.
Learn More about Natalie
30 minutes?! Sold! This has all of my favorite things in it. Looks fantastic. 🙂
Would this work with a GF flour? or can it be omitted?
I wouldn’t omit the flour, but I think it would work fine with a GF flour.
serving size? Nutritional information
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/
Angela You don’t need flour or gluten free flour. Make a slurry with corn starch and add to the chicken stock to thicken it.
Sounds delish! I’m making it tonight. I note your blurb says ‘dinner on the table in 30 min’ but the recipe says cook 40-50min. Can you confirm which it is please?
Sorry!! It should be 40-50 minutes bake time just to make sure the sweet potatoes get cooked through.
This looks incredible. Are we putting the chicken in there cooked or raw?
You put it in raw.
Can the chicken be omitted? My toddler is still funny with meat.
Sure! I haven’t tried it without, but I’m sure it would turn out fine.
In the description you say toss them into the dish and bake and you have dinner in 30 minutes. In the recipe you say to bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Which is correct? It’s quite a discrepancy.
Sorry about that – you will want to bake for 40-50 to make sure the potatoes are cooked through.
We made this for dinner tonight. I have a 2 and 5 year old and they both loved it. The 5 year old even asked for seconds! I love this website!
Made this tonight and it’s delicious!
Made this tonight, replaced pesto with seeded and Dijon mustards, some grated carrot and a few cauliflower chunks, finger licking good and enough for tomorrow’s lunch at work…… Winner winner chicken dinner….
Sounds delish!
Tried this and the kids loved it! It was my first time using sweet potato, and the results were just great. I did substitute a sauteed onion for the leeks. I liked that is was not too sweet, with a nice balance. Thanks!
Is the chicken suppose to be raw chicken or cooked chicken pieces?
You put it in raw, and then the chicken cooks as it bakes.
Any suggestions on making this vegetarian? Should I add something else to sub for the chicken? Would black beans be weird?
Black beans would be super yummy! Let us know how it turns out if you try it!
I made this tonight and it’s amazing! I’ve never cooked with leeks before but they are really good, but I am a huge onion fan 🙂 Recommending this to everyone I know!
I’m trying this right now with a veggie twist. Using veg stock & quorn, also using squash as I have no sweet potato, also bunged in some sweetcorn as it sounded nice. Fingers crossed 😀
I made this tonight but quinoa wouldn’t cook through.. Could I put it already cooked? It looks amazing & tasted good I want to try this again!
Yes you can definitely put it in already cooked. Smart idea 🙂
This was a hit from age 2 to 72! I split the recipe making one vegetarian with firm tofu and the second with chicken. I used veg broth instead of chicken broth and added another sweet potato to bulk it up and baked both in an 8×8 baking dish.
Do you use a 10×10 or 9×13 baking dish? Thank you.
I used a 9×13 baking dish.
Made this for lunch for my daycare kiddies they loved it. We didn’t add leeks as I couldn’t find any but we did add some cauliflower yummm yum yumm.
Just found your site. Your recipes look delicious. However when trying to print out, the font is way too small for me to read and can’t find a way to enlarge it.
What browser are you using? We have not been able to replicate that problem.
I tried this recipe out tonight. Followed it to a tee and it came it looking like a soup 🙁
I’m so sorry about that! Different ovens cook differently – you can definitely decrease the liquid in the recipe to help with this problem.
Cooking for son who is allergic to dairy – what can I replace the shredded cheese with? I love the rest of the ingredients.
My daughter is sensitive to dairy so I replaced the regular milk with soy milk and it still came out perfect! I also used thighs instead of breast meat and added diced roasted red peppers. Thanks so much for this recipe-it is so easy and my 17 month old twins love it!
Amazing dish! My 16 month old baby and husband loved it! Thank you so much for the recipe.
I’m a huge fan of your website. Thank you for all the lovely recipes ? Do you think is it possible to freeze the leftovers?
I was so excited to try this but it was a massive fail! Not sure what happened because I followed the recipe exactly. It came out with the quinoa not cooked through (also didn’t plump up at all as it usually does when it cooks) and the casserole had so much liquid it was like soup and the sweet potatoes were mush. It was gross! I wish I knew what went wrong?? I was so bummed to have to throw out a casserole made of entirely organic ingredients.
Kristy! I am so sorry this didn’t turn out for you. Honestly I’m not sure what went wrong, but if you decide to make it again, you can try changing a couple of things:
1. Precook your quinoa. It only takes about 15 minutes in a pot and then it will be done for sure 🙂
2. Decrease the cooking liquid to 1/2 cup chicken broth, 1/2 cup milk.
3. Decrease the overall cooking time. Check it after about 35 minutes to make sure the sweet potatoes aren’t mushy.
Good luck and thanks for the feedback!
Hi, could I prepare a few of these and freeze them for later days?
I haven’t tried freezing it. The sweet potatoes might be a little mushy after freezing – if you try it let us know how it turns out!
I wonder is anyone has tried this in a slow cooker? It would be great to come home to a cooked casserole…
Mine at 45 min also looked like a soup and quinoa wasn’t cooked – back to the oven for an additional 10 min (still covered) and quinoa is now cooked through – still a little watery but I just let it sit uncovered to cool off and the excess liquid evaporated.
Hope it helps if anyone else sees these issues! (Sweet potato did not get mushy)
Do you think there would be Any problems making it up in the morning but not sticking it in the oven to bake until evening?
Super good.
Very good. Easy to make. But the sweet potato was only partially cooked. Hence only four stars. Could imagine that carrots instead of sweet potatoes would go well, too.
Really good and makes the whole house smell so yummy! Basil and leeks compliment sweet Potatoe well
How much pesto for this dish? Recipe above says “33/100 cup”.
Hi Jen, sorry for the confusion! It should be 1/3 cup. We had some glitches to our recipes following a big update to our site last weekend. The amounts should look normal to you now. Thanks for your patience!
Delicious! You know it’s a great recipe when my incredibly picky 2 year old and my husband both ask for more (WHAT!). Gotta love the minimal prep work for a delicious and nutritious outcome!
I’m so glad you all enjoyed it Colleen!
This came out super yummy. Baked for 45 min and came out perfect. I think some may have soupy results because they didn’t cook the sauce long enough is my guess-make sure the sauce is thick before mixing it and adding into the oven. My 4 year old enjoyed it and so did I.
How does it impact the carb count if I subbed out a vegetable for the sweet potato? The current count is a little high for my diabetic
The sweet potato contributes about 6-7 grams of carbs per serving. Hope that helps!