Fast & Healthy Burrito Bowl
I was having some serious taco cravings last night and decided against going to my favorite fast food taco joint for my favorite crunchwrap supreme. It’s 15 minutes away and requires putting on pants, so that was absolutely not happening, nor was I about to pay a ridiculous delivery fee because I’m lazy, cheap, and frugal.
In the interest of getting something in my belly that meets all my cravings and nutritional needs, I made a burrito bowl! My favorite things about this are that you can basically put anything you want in here, based on what you already have.
This one has the following elements:
- Rice – I used good old Uncle Ben’s parboiled rice. It cooks in under 5 minutes! I cooked this with some lemon juice (no lime available) & dried cilantro.
- Sweet Potato – you could just always have roasted sweet potato prepped (and I should really take my own advice on that one!), but in this case I just diced it pretty small to shorten the roast time to under 15 minutes. These are spiced with cumin & coriander.
- Beans – black & refried, my favorites for tacos, nachos, and burritos.
- Avocado – because it needed to be eaten and it goes so well with the above.
- Tortilla strips – because they were in our crunchy salad box in the pantry (more about the usefulness of this later).
- Fresh Cilantro – because I can and you should!
- Taco Sauce – only a little because I have GERD, but you can do any hot sauce or even just diced tomatoes, or better yet, pico de gallo.
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Hard Foods First!
When prepping just about anything, start with the longest cooking time items first. In my case, it is the sweet potato. Notice I cut it pretty small, that is so we can roast them rather quickly. My favorite tip for roasting anything, and man do I love to roast my veggies, is to have a tossing bowl. For me, that is a stainless steel mixing bowl that I use to toss everything in – put in your veggies, a dash of oil, and whatever spices you like. Now shake and toss everything in that bowl until fully coated!
So today, I dice my sweet potato, toss it into my bowl, add a dash of canola oil and some cumin, salt, pepper, and ground coriander (depending on where you’re from, fresh cilantro = coriander, but in the US coriander is what we call the ground seed of the fresh plant). I roast on 425°F until they are soft and the edges are a little brown.
While this is roasting, let’s get together the rest.
Everything Else Second
Okay, while the sweet potato is roasting, I get my rice ready: I put about half of the amount of dry rice I think I’ll eat into a small pot, and add just enough water to cover it with about half inch of water. Next, I add in lemon juice & cilantro. Now, 99% of the time I like to add some mirin (rice wine vinegar) into the rice, but this is totally up to you and what you keep in the house. You may also just reserve this for Asian-inspired dishes, and that’s totally okay too! If you don’t have parboiled rice, just follow the directions in case you need to start cooking before the sweet potato.
A tip for finishing the rice: bring it to a hard boil, give it one stir, the cover it, turn it to low or off, and just leave it alone. Don’t open it – don’t stir it. Just leave it. Have some self control and you’ll get perfect rice!
Finally, I heat up my beans, cut the avocado and search for crunchies in my crunchy salad box in my pantry. I have a little green basket in my pantry that I fill with croutons (home made or store bought), cracker crumbs, and anything that I use as a salad topping. I also sometimes store my pectin packets in there, even though they aren’t a salad crunchy. This box sits next to a tiny shoebox that I store my tiny specialty oils & vinegars in. I really recommend having something like this in your house. Examples of additions: craisins, sunflower seeds, tortilla strips, croutons, cracker crumbs, dried fruits.
Wash, dry, and chop your fresh cilantro. Yum. As much or as little as you like.
Before we get to arranging everything, I do have one tip on using the beans:
- Black beans – rinse them pretty well. Feel free to add in corn or green peppers when cooking. My favorite thing to do is use a frying pan to start with the green pepper, get it nice and charred, turn down the heat, add in the black beans, add cumin, and then add corn lastly. This time I just heated the beans with a tiny bit of oil and a heavy helping of cumin. I looove cumin with cilantro, so you’ll see that a lot.
- Refried beans – I use whatever is cheapest, but you do you. There are vegetarian/vegan cans, you can make it in the crock-pot over several days, or if you’re not avoiding meat products you can get regular ole refried beans can. I heat this up on low-medium heat and add in a bit of water as it gets hot so that it is easily spreadable. Feel free to spice up, but I leave it as the one neutral aspect of the dish.
Plate it!
Finally, you should have your sweet potatoes cooked, rice finished, avocado sliced, cilantro chopped, and salad crunchies out. First, I scoop my rice into my bowl, then make a little hole by pushing the spatula or spoon up against the side of the bowl and pushing the rice inward. I put the sweet potato in the hole. Then I make another hole and add in the black beans. Repeat for the refried beans. Top with the avocado, cilantro, tortilla strips, taco sauce, and salt & pepper.
Remember, start with what you have! If you don’t have avocado, that is fine. Have guac instead? Great! Wanna cheese it up – go ahead! Red onion? Yellow onion? Green onion? Put it all in! Tomato? Tomato sauce – just cook it down with spices, you’ll be fine! It really is just working with what you have. Leftover Stir Fry & Leftover Burrito Bowls are super easy for getting use out of those leftover veggies chilling in your fridge.
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