Chicken Veggie Bowl with Ginger Almond Sauce

This “Chicken Veggie Bowl with Ginger Almond Sauce” is not a salad. It’s a bowlful of plenty, wholesome filling food. A whole new category of food in my meal routine I’m calling “Bowls of Health”. A complete meal that falls somewhere between one pot meal and main course salad and is easily “brown bagged” to take on the go.

For most people, Monday is reset people. A day to get back into healthy habits and make up for the weekend mischief. I felt the same until I discovered meal prep. Now when I have an hour or two on Sunday to spare, I follow my weekly grocery shopping with a veggie chopping, sauce making, whole grain cooking marathon. I make a couple meals, such as this, to pack away for lunches and with the left over prepped ingredients I can pull together dinner the rest of the week with under 30 minutes of cooking.

And I’m not talking about Rachel Ray run around the kitchen chopping ingredients with your left hand while you stir three different pots with your right hand.  Once the prep is done, you can find me in my kitchen during the week leisurely sipping wine (thinking this is AWESOME) as I whip out nutritious, delicious dinners in 20 easy minutes.

In this recipe, I combine a variety of veggies with grilled chicken and wild red rice. Many different veggies would work and quinoa, brown rice, and other whole grains would be great substitutes. I found that the nuttiness of the whole grains goes great with the nut butter sauce. The whole mess of a bowl is topped with my variation of a tangy asian peanut sauce. Except it doesn’t contain peanut at all, just almond butter, but use whatever you have around.

Chicken Veggie Health Bowl with Ginger Almond Sauce

• Servings: 4-6 lunch portions
• Time: 45mins

Ingredients:

For the bowl:

• 2 lbs Grilled Chicken, a rotisserie is a good option or grill your own
• 2-3 cups cooked rice or whole grain
• Mixed chopped veggies: I used 2 red peppers, 1 yellow pepper, 1 lb snow peas, 1 sliced cucumber
• Lightly pickled carrots (optional): 4 Carrots, 1/2 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp salt
• Avocado, approximately 1/4 per serving
• Lime slices for serving (optional)

For the sauce (Adapted from Well Fed by Melissa Joulwan):

• juice of 2 limes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 TBSP soy sauce or coconut amigos
• a “thumb” of ginger peeled
• 1/2 cup of almond butter
• ~1/4 cup almond, soy, or coconut milk to thin (optional)

Method:

Grill chicken by your favorite method. If you don’t have one than here is a simple method:  Pound the thicker end of the breast until it is relatively flat, salt and pepper 30 minutes prior to grilling, grill approximately 4 minutes on each side until the internal temperature reaches 150 deg F. Remove from heat and let sit for 15-20 minutes before slicing.

If you choose to pickle the carrots, mix the rice vinegar, salt and sugar together in a mason jar or container. Ribbons of carrots or julienned would look beautiful but I used by food processor to chop the carrots and save time. Add carrots to vinegar and let sit at least 30 minutes or refrigerate until needed.

Meanwhile make the sauce. Combined the first five ingredients in a food processor. Thin with whatever non-dairy milk you have on hand or just use water to desired consistency. You want the sauce to be pour-ible.

Place individual portions of each ingredient together in a bowl and pour sauce over top. Serve at room temperature.

Special Equipment Needed: Food Processor or Blender