If you’re looking for a simple and quick meal try out this delicious vegan burrito bowl recipe! Made with simple ingredients, this recipe comes together easily and is packed with a balance of flavours and nutrition.
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Making a Quick Plant-based Burrito Bowl
While much of what I cook is simple, certain recipes take more time than others. This is often due to needing to chop a lot of vegetables.
We’re not skimping out on veggies here, but the overall prep work is fairly straight forward. Apart from cooking rice and corn, the rest of the ingredients are enjoyed fresh (or from a can), saving time and dishes!
I buy frozen corn kernels and cook them in the microwave. This is a super simple way to add this delicious ingredient to your vegan burrito bowls. Corn will also add some fibre and protein along with a bit of natural sweetness.
If you want to save even more time, a store bought guacamole can be a nice option.
Burrito Bowls for a Weeknight Meal or Meal Prep
This recipe for vegan burrito bowls is ideal as a weeknight meal because it’s so quick and easy to throw together.
If you like to meal prep, this is also a great option. I often like to do what I call “ingredient meal prep” which is simply getting some ingredients for the week ready to go! In this case, cooking rice, prepping the black beans and cooking corn are all great things to do ahead of time.
With ingredient meal prep, you can make a large amount of staple ingredients (ex. rice and beans) and use them in multiple recipes through the week. This allows for a variety of meals and flavours through the week.
I’m not a fan of traditional meal prep where you make a couple recipes and pre-portion them out. This doesn’t work for me but if you enjoy this style of meal prep, this recipe can easily be prepared in that way.
Making a Balanced Vegan Meal: Burrito Bowl Edition
What makes a balanced vegan meal? I define a balanced meal as one that contains:
- A good source of protein
- Carbohydrates (including fibre)
- Vegetables
- Healthy fat
These simple vegan burrito bowls check off all those boxes. There’s protein in the black beans (and some in the brown rice and corn). Carbs are found in the beans, rice and corn, all of which also include fibre!
Clearly there’s lots of veggies around as well. And different coloured vegetables which provides a wider range of antioxidants (along with the health benefits of antioxidants)!
Lastly, I like to load up my burrito bowl with a few large scoops of guacamole for some healthy fats. This recipe is quite low in fat but adding fat to a meal is essential to help with nutrient absorption and satiation (feeling full and satisfied).
Flavouring your Vegan Burrito Bowls
I’ve kept the black beans in this recipe plain. I find there is enough flavour from the guacamole to keep my taste buds happy.
Keeping the black beans as-is also makes prepping this meal significantly quicker. If you have more time, sautéing the black beans with some taco seasoning would be fantastic! Or keep it simple and toss some taco seasoning straight into your burrito bowl.
Another way to add some great flavour is to toss some salsa into your bowl. Homemade salsa is great, but store-bought salsa is easy to keep on hand as it can last a while in the fridge.
Other tasty additions to this vegan burrito bowl could be:
- Vegan sour cream
- Roasted sweet potato (toss in some taco seasoning before roasting for a ton of flavour)
- Vegan taco meat (veggie ground round cooked with onion and taco seasoning)
What are your favourite ingredients for a burrito bowl? Let me know in the comments below and make sure to tag me @lettucevegout if you make this recipe and share on social media! Seeing your creations is so much fun for me!
Simple Whole Food Vegan Burrito Bowls
Equipment
- Rice cooker
- Cutting Board
- Knife
- Can Opener
Ingredients
- 1 batch guacamole
- 1 C brown rice dry
- 1 can black beans drained and rinsed
- 2 C corn fresh or frozen
- 2 medium tomatoes chopped
- 1 large bell pepper chopped (I’ve used a green pepper, but any colour works)
- Cilantro chopped, for garnish
Instructions
- Prepare the guacamole (link in text above).
- Cook the brown rice according to package directions.
- Drain and rinse the black beans.
- Prepare the corn. I use frozen corn kernels and cook them in the microwave. To cook corn in the microwave, place the corn into a microwave safe container. Cover the corn with water and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Taste a kernel to make sure it is cooked through. Carefully remove the corn from the microwave (it will be really hot) and strain out the water.
- Chop the tomato, bell pepper, and cilantro for garnish.
- To assemble the burrito bowl, all you do is toss everything together in a bowl. For ratios of ingredients I like 1 C rice, ½ C everything else. Garnish with cilantro. Use whatever proportion of ingredients you like!
Notes
Nutrition
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This is an updated post: Original post date February 2019
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