Chicken Carnitas Burrito Bowl with Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice

Whenever I make a tasty Mexican style meat like chicken carnitas I like to make extra to ensure leftovers for things like quesadillas and burrito bowls! Burrito bowls are essentially burritos that are served in bowls minus the tortillas and they are super easy to make! Typically a burrito bowl will start off with rice, but a lighter alternative is a cauliflower rice, followed by beans, vegetables like lettuce and tomatoes, and then finished off with things like guacamole, sour cream, salsa and cheese. Although you can go overboard filling out a burrito bowl it is pretty easy to keep them nice and light, healthy and satisfying and this burrito bowl does it with style! Forget waiting for leftovers! I am going to make another batch of chicken carnitas for more burrito bowls now!

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Summer Vegetable Quinoa Burrito Bowls with Corn, Zucchini and Black Beans

While I was enjoying the summer vegetable bibimbap for breakfasts last week I could not help but think about how similar bibimbap is to burrito bowls. They are bowl rice bowls filled with meats and/or vegetables and a spicy sauce, in one case a gachujang sauce and in the other case a salsa. With that thought I had to try burrito bowls with the same late summer produce including zucchini, corn, black beans and avocado along with a fresh pico de gallo made with some fresh field ripened tomatoes for breakfasts this week! Instead of going with rice this time I went for something a little healthier, quinoa, well I actually went with a blend of quinoa and sprouted brown and wild rice. These late summer vegetable burrito bowls certainly make for some tasty, filling and healthy meals!

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Summer Vegetable Bibimbap with Corn, Zucchini and Black Beans

Some of my most popular recipes are not the healthiest which may give the impression that I spend my days eating things like grilled cheese sandwiches and hot melted cheese dips which is not the case. I believe in moderation and although the grilled cheese sandwiches and dips definitely have their place I try to balance them out with healthier dishes and even if they are not as glamorous I wanted to start sharing more of them with you. On of my favourite 'healthy' meals is bibimbap, a Korean rice bowl, where the rice is topped with pretty much anything you want along with a spicy chili pepper sauce. One of the things that I like most about this dish is that you can use what ever you have on hand from meats to vegetables and leftovers are just perfect. If you are using only raw vegetables and leftovers then this meal only takes as long to make as it takes to cook the rice and if you have leftover rice then it only takes 5 minutes to throw together! I like to make big batches of rice and assemble all of the other ingredients on the weekend so that I can throw these bowls together quickly for meals throughout the week.

Recently I have been enjoying bowls of bibimbap filled with some of the amazing summer produce that is around right now including corn and zucchini which along with the rice and some beans makes for a pretty complete healthy meal in a bowl! Instead of going with plain white rice I like to go with more whole grains including things like brown rice, bulgar, farro, and even quinoa. For this particular bibimbap I wen with a nice mix of brown and wild rice.

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Spring Quinoa Bibimbap with Asparagus, Fiddleheads, Fava Bean and Ramps

This past weekend the farmers market was full of new fresh local produce including ramp (aka wild leeks), fiddleheads, favabeans and asparagus. I had left some slots open in my meal plan this week to pick up some of the new arrivals to make a dish or two but now that there was so much selection I just could not decide what to get! In the end I decided to get a bit of everything and I was already thinking about what to use them all in on my walk home. Bibimbap is a Korean 'mixed rice' dish where vegetables and meats are served over rice and then all mixed up before eating and it seemed like a great way to enjoy all of springs bounty! Although bibimbap is normally made with rice, I like to make it with quinoa both for the extra nutritional value and because of the great texture that quinoa has. This dish is really easy to make though if you are starting from scratch rather than using leftovers it can take a bit of time to cook all of the vegetables but it is well worth it. Most of the vegetables are steamed or blanched and then optionally sauteed in a bit of oil along with the ramps. This spring bibimbap is finished with a fried egg with a runny yolks and a spicy gochujang sauce.

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Spicy Peanut Chicken Rice Bowl

A while ago I made some sweet chili chicken rice bowls and they got me thinking that spicy peanut chicken rice bowls would also be really tasty! I wanted to keep things relatively simple so I braised the chicken in some of my favourite Thai spicy peanut sauce all day and shredded it before using it in the rice bowl along with the sauce that it was cooked in. The rest of the rice bowls consist of cooked rice, a fried egg, steamed spinach, fresh herbs and crispy fried shallots making for a light and tasty meal in a bowl that is just packed with flavour. If you have a rice cooker you can make things easier by setting it to have the rice cooked when the chicken is done and then all that is left is frying the eggs and steaming the spinach.

Tip: Make a double batch of the spicy peanut sauce and cook some extra chicken for use in some tasty spicy peanut chicken quesadillas

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Kongnamul Bap (Korean Beansprout Rice Bowl)

After making the sweet chili chicken rice bowl I have been thinking about rice bowls a lot and I remembered another rice bowl that was on my to-try list, kongnamul bap, a Korean beansprout rice bowl. I really enjoy beansprouts but I do not seem to use them all that often and when I do the recipes often call for a small amount and the rest of the large bag goes to waste so I liked that this recipe call for a whole bag. Another thing that I like about this recipe is the interesting way that it is cooked in that the beansprouts and beef are placed on top of the rice and water in the pot that it is cooked in. Although you do not have to, I cooked the beef in a pan before adding it to the pot with the rice and I seasoned the beef with some soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil first.

Whenever I think about Korean cuisine I think about kimchi and it has to be one of my favourite foods so I could not resist sauteing some up along with the beef and then adding it to the pot with the rice. You may notice that the amount of water in this recipe is about half of what it normally is when cooking rice and that is because the beansprouts will release enough liquid to finish of the rice perfectly. The final component of this rice bowl is that it is topped with a tasty sauce that has salty aspects, sweet aspects and plenty of chilly heat along with the intoxifyingly aromatic sesame oil.

I had a feeling that this rice bowl was going to be good but I did not know just how good! It is just packed with some of my favourite flavours and every bite had me going back for another! This is definitely hearty enough to make a meal out of and an extremely satisfying one at that!

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Sweet Chili Chicken Rice Bowl

When I found the recipe for the salsa naranja it was a part of a recipe for a sweet chili chicken rice bowl and given my mild obsession with rice bowls it was next on my list to make. The basic idea behind a rice bowl is that is is a complete meal in a bowl with a base of rice and from there you can go pretty much anywhere you want. Two of my favoutrite examples of rice bowls are bibimbap and the burrito bowl and I always like to experiment with new ones. I started the rice bowl with the chicken which I decided to do bulgogi style and I went with my usual chicken bulgogi recipe but I removed the chili paste since it was going to be served with the salsa naranja and given that we already had an orange theme going I added some orange juice to the marinade. I then turned the rice bowl into a complete meal by adding a fried egg, steamed spinach and plenty of tasty garnishes like fresh cilantro and basil, sliced chilies and fried shallots in addition to the tasty orange salsa.

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