Simple Pesto Quinoa with Walnuts Avocado Kale and Zucchini is just full of flavors. Gluten free and vegan. Perfect for a weeknight meal.

Today we’ll be flying back to the US for a month after traveling through Asia and Europe for over 11 months.

I can barely believe it has been so long. The time flew by and it seems impossible that I’ve been away for so long.

We’ll only be home for a month before we hit the road again and as much as I love to travel I’m also super excited to come home for a bit.

It’ll be so nice to see family and friends and be back at home. I love both family and friend gatherings and can’t wait for both.

To celebrate our return home I’m sharing a recipe with two of my all time favorite foods; quinoa, (a product that can be particularly hard to find abroad) and zucchini. While I love zucchini in zucchini burger recipes here I’ve added it to quinoa instead. And of course I had to add pesto – because that is clearly my life’s obsession at all times, so pesto quinoa is ready for you!

This pesto quinoa is a combination of two quinoa dishes I made in the past, my quinoa with artichokes, asparagus and kale, and my quinoa with pesto, veggies and chicken. Best of both worlds if you ask me. Don’t you just love when your own recipes inspire you to create new recipes? I do!

For this pesto quinoa I highly recommend toasting the quinoa in a bit of olive oil before adding in the water or broth to cook. This allows the quinoa to have a deeper flavor and in the same way that I find rice pilaf always has a better rice texture than regular steam rice, well the same happens to quinoa. So please take the extra 2 minutes to toast the quinoa for this pesto quinoa recipe — I know you won’t regret it!

Hope you enjoy my easy pesto quinoa recipe and please share your thoughts in the comments below!