What is a Buddha Bowl?

„What is a Buddha Bowl?” – the question that you certainly have in your mind. Basically, a buddha bowl is made up of some different ingredients that you would never have thought of adding them in the same dish / bowl. A Buddha bowl is a complex meal, nutritious and nourishing that first conquers you visually, being a colorful bowl, then conquers you with its diversity of ingredients.

Sources say that the name of this preparation would come from Buddha’s belly, which looks a lot like a bowl, but the most plausible explanation I found was on thekitchn.com, which says that the Buddha woke up every day very early and took with him a bowl wherever he went. The locals put him food in that bowl, and at the end of the day he was eating all what was in there. In other words, a bowl of different cooked or uncooked ingredients.

The concept of „Buddha bowl” was originally adopted especially by those who have a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, but slowly it was also adopted by the meat lovers.

In a Buddha Bowl you can put the following types of food:
1. Grains: rice, quinoa
2. Legumes: chickpeas, lentils, soybeans, peas, beans
3. Vegetables: you can choose from the whole range of vegetables
4. Proteins: vegan (especially legumines) or animal source (meat, eggs)
5. Fruits: avocados, dried fruits (cranberries, plums, apricots, etc.)
6. Sauces and dips / puree: various dressings, chickpea puree, green pea puree, etc.
7. Extra: Nuts (walnuts, peanuts, almonds, caju), seeds (sunflower, flax, chia, pumpkin, hemp), germs, etc.

The ingredients are often cooked separately, and then the combinations you can do are countless, it depends only on your imagination and how much you want to experience.

When is the perfect time to make such a bowl?

When you have leftover foods (cooked or uncooked) and you do not know what to do with them, different foods that are in small quantities and must be eaten before they go bad.

For example, in the fridge you have some random ingredients such as boiled rice, 5-6 mushrooms, half-baked pumpkin, little spinach, half a can of sweet corn and 1 green onion. Don’t know what to do with them? Is simple. Cool the veggies that need cooking, then add them in a bowl and make a simple dressing (lemon, olive oil, salt, pepper). If you have, you can add different seeds, nuts or other ingredients that don’t necessarily need to be cook (radishes, germs, chilli, avocado, etc.).

Today was inspired by this kind of bowl and I also made myself a nourishing, colorful and full of flavor Buddha Bowl
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INGREDIENTS
100 gr. lentils
1 avocado
1 sweet potato
1 egg
1 handful of spinach
a few cherry tomatoes
olive oil
Spices: salt, pepper, sweet pepper, dried basil
2 tablespoons of vinegar
Optional: 1 clove of garlic

* These are just some random ingredients that I had in my fridge and pantry

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PREPARATION
First of all I put the lentils to boil in a pan with water and a bit of salt until they became soft.
I cut the sweet potatoes into cubes and put them in a tray covered with baking sheet together with the cherry tomatoes. I seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika and dried basil and sprinkled some olive oil. I mixed everything well, then I put the tray in the preheated oven at 180°C: the cherry tomatoes for 5-10 minutes until their skin slightly broken off, and the sweet potato cubes for 15-20 minutes until they became soft.

The next step was to saute the spinach in a pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 chopped garlic clove for 15-20 seconds until the spinach became soft. It’s up to you if you want to eat the spinach raw or cooked.

I chose to make a poached egg, but you can boil it or fry it. For details on how to make a poached egg, see my sandwich with poached egg.

The last step was to cut a few slices of avocado, on which I squeezed a little bit of lemon juice.

All the ingredients are ready to be put in a deep dish or in a bowl:
– 4 tablespoons of cooked lentils in one part of the bowl
– I added half of the sweet potatoes next to the lentils
– I put the sauteed spinach spinach
– the cherry tomatoes next to spinach
– avocado slices over the cooked lentils
– the poached egg in the middle of the bowl

At the end I sprinkled a little salt and pepper over all the ingredients.

It was an explosion of flavors in my mouth!

What do you think about this idea? Would you try a nourishing Buddha bowl?

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