The Ultimate Buddha Bowl: Get It In Your Face

Confession: I’m not entirely sure what a Buddha bowl is. To me, they look like straight up salads but apparently, they’re not.  I read this article and that cleared a few things up. 

A Buddha Bowl is…

• Made up of mainly vegetables
• Usually vegan
• Usually consumed by incredibly wholesome looking people whose kitchens have beach views and their children don’t wear shoes
• A bowl of segmented little bites of food like bi bim bap
• The boss of Instagram

I’ve come to the conclusion that Buddha bowls are basically salads organised neatly. I can totally get behind that. I make taco bowls and salads often but I’ve never made a straight up Instagram worthy, eat it on a sun-filled deck while wearing a white bikini Buddha bowl and gosh darn it, I wanted to try it.

Here’s my version – it’s not vegan but it’s totally customisable so you can add grains, rice, beans, seeds – anything that takes your fancy.

What You Need (makes 1)

Dressing

Whole egg mayonnaise

Bowl 

1 chicken thigh fillet, cut into 1cm pieces

A handful of green beans

A handful of cos lettuce

1 small zucchini, sliced

1 small carrot, spiralized

1/2 an avocado, sliced

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 teaspoon of toasted pine nuts

1 fried egg

What you do 

1. Pan fry chicken on medium heat for about 5 mins each side or until brown and cooked through. Set aside.

2. Stir-fry zucchini slices until slightly brown. Set aside.

3. Stir fry greens beans until they go bright green from the heat, set aside.

4. Fry an egg, sunny side up.

5. Arrange your Buddha bowl.  Start with cos lettuce, add small piles of zucchini, carrot, beans, tomatoes, chicken and avocado. Drizzle with mayo, sprinkle with pine nuts and serve.

Note: This is not a quick and easy work week lunch. There’s lots of chopping involved but you can put this together in about 20 minutes if you really nail it. I never look at the preparation of healthy food as a waste of time though. I’m lucky because I work from home and I have the availability to make stuff like this for lunch and I use my preparation time as a break. I put on a podcast or some music and spend 20 minutes in the kitchen preparing a nourishing meal. It’s totally worth it. If you don’t have access to a kitchen, lots of this can be done the night before and there are some amazing re-heatable roast vegetable Buddha bowls that are perfect for work.

Have you ever made a Buddha bowl? Or ordered one at a restaurant and thought ‘I can make this myself.’?

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