Name: Cheesy Baked Quinoa with Chicken and Vegetables
Ingredients: 1 cup quinoa (2 cups cooked); 2 cups of fresh veggies (I used broccoli this time), chopped; 1 1/2 cups of your; (12 ounce jar); 2 cups cooked chicken (rotisserie chicken works well or cook 2 chicken breasts); 1/3 cup Greek yogurt or heavy cream; 1 cup mozzarella; 2 tablespoons basil, chopped; 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Why it works: Quinoa and broccoli share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Quinoa + broccolitop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together55 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Basil + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,294 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Broccoli + basiltop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Quinoa + basiltop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together62 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Broccoli + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,747 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quinoa, broccoli, chicken, yogurt, pepper):

Garlicfits better
Corianderfits better
Cuminfits better
Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quinoa, broccoli, chicken, yogurt, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Quinoa	1 cup cooked (185g)	222
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Mozzarella Cheese	1 oz (28g)	85
Broccoli	1 cup chopped (156g)	55
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Chili	1 tsp (2.7g)	8
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Basil	5 leaves fresh (2.5g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0

Cheesy Baked Quinoa with Chicken and Vegetables