A simple hearty vegetable bowl that’ll make your lunch —and life — easier this week.
Bowl meals are a simple way to make meal planning work for you by creating an easy lunch filled with nutrient-dense foods. A quick recap and primer on what bowl meals are — a meal in a bowl made with leftovers or meal components you’ve made on your batch cooking day. Bowl meals are incredibly versatile and affordable, making up a large majority of the meals I eat every week and being a staple recipe in the Guide to Master Meal Planning. They involve a beautiful balance of greens, fiber-rich carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats. A bowl meal always involves ingredients that have been meal prepped on batch cooking day along with fresh produce that I have stocked in my fridge. When I’m ready to eat, it only takes 5-10 minutes to prepare a hearty vegetable bowl like this one.
I’ve shared the secrets to the balance of the perfect bowl meal, along with a few go-to variations like Simple Sweet Potato & Greens Bowl, Brown Rice Miso Macro Bowl, and One Bowl Skillet Meal. Today’s version includes fiber-rich vegetables that leave you feeling fueled and full, including roasted butternut squash, radishes, and slices of lemon to add acidity.
For added protein, you can use whatever protein you enjoy, but I recommend trying this plant-based protein you should be eating — crumbled tofu. The trick to making tofu interesting is all about flavor and texture, this crumbled tofu is a great way to switch it up from the standard tofu cubes you often see. The crumbled texture of tofu absorbs more flavor from the seasonings and soaks up the lemon juice creating a bright citrus flavor.
To serve, you can make the base of your bowl with hearty greens, a little bit of basmati rice, followed by the vegetables — with delicious garnishes like fresh avocado, red chili pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. The key is making this hearty vegetable bowl work for you and use vegetable ingredients you have in your fridge or leftover from the week. Easy, satisfying and nourishing.
Let me know what you think when you give this hearty vegetable bowl recipe a “go”! When you try it, please take a picture and post it on Instagram — be sure to tag @nutritionstripped and #nutritionstripped so the community can get inspired by your dish too. We love seeing your creations!
xx McKel