Oh Buddha bowls. How do I love thee.
Buddha bowls are my favorite thing to have for dinner. I make them at least several times a month, and since you can constantly change out the ingredients, I never get sick of them.

In case you haven’t been to any hippie vegan cafes lately, let me define a Buddha bowl for you. It’s a one-dish meal with four basic components:

  1. a whole bunch of vegetables, usually sautéed or roasted
  2. some kind of grain (rice, quinoa, couscous)
  3. a protein (beans, tofu, tempeh)
  4. dressing

Since the ingredients are so flexible in Buddha bowls, you can use your creativity to choose what you’ll include. Roast any type of vegetables, depending on what’s in season or what you need to use up in your fridge. Vary your grain type, depending on what you’re craving that day. For protein, use chickpeas in one recipe, and grilled tempeh in the other.

And when everything’s done, mix it all up with some delicious dressing! There are so many dressings out there that you can never get sick of them all. I went through a long phase of using this peanut sauce recipe for my Buddha bowl dressing. As much as I love peanut butter, I eventually got sick of it. So all I had to do was change my dressing and voila, brand new Buddha bowl!

So here’s a new Buddha bowl recipe that I’ve been obsessed with lately. It uses Green Goddess salad dressing, a simple and flavorful dressing from Tessemae’s. Add avocado as a garnish, and you end up with a healthy and delicious Buddha bowl.

P1000966Recipe: Roasted Veggie Buddha Bowl with Green Goddess Dressing
Prep time: 45 minutes

  • 1 head broccoli, chopped
  • 1 sweet potato, diced into bite size pieces
  • 3 T olive oil or coconut oil
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • 1 cup couscous
  • 1 cup almonds, sliced
  • 1 can chickpeas, drained
  • 1/4 cup Green Goddess dressing
  • 1 avocado, optional
  • 1 cup feta cheese, optional

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. When broccoli and sweet potato are chopped, spread on a baking pan and coat in olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste (more is usually better!). Roast in oven for 40 minutes, until sweet potato can easily be pierced by a fork.

Meanwhile, boil 1 1/4 cup water. At boiling point, add couscous and remove from heat. Let sit until grain has absorbed water.

Add cooked couscous, vegetables, almonds, and chickpeas to large bowl. Stir together, then coat with Green Goddess dressing. Serve hot or cold, adding avocado slices and feta cheese if you wish!

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