Shallow-bowl meals are easy to prepare, colorful, savory, and wonderfully healthy. Best of all, they’re ideal for RV travel.
By Janet Groene, F47166
July 2021
Ring the dinner bell for the new rage in recipes — poke bowls, bibimbap bowls, Indian butter bowls, Buddha bowls. Picture-pretty meals in a shallow bowl are today’s version of the “composed” plate, plus Grandmother’s old formula for a “meat and three.”
Usually, bowls are an artful arrangement of a starch, a vegetable, and a meat or plant protein, topped with colorful garnishes. They’re also ideal for RV travel. They’re easy to prepare, versatile, and easy to eat, whether you’re at the RV table indoors, seated at the picnic table, or balancing dinner on your lap in a camp chair while viewing the sunset.
Bowls are the antidote to look-alike soups and casseroles. They give your inner artist a way to turn a balanced, three-course meal into a portrait of contrasting colors, tastes, and textures. Some bowls take two or more steps to prepare; others require no cooking at all. Most can be served hot or cold. By their nature, they tend to be gluten free.
The advantage for the RV chef is that ingredients for bowls can be readied ahead of time and then assembled just before serving.
Roasted Vegetable Bowl
Make a week’s worth of grilled vegetables when you have the grill going, or drizzle them with olive oil and roast them on a sheet pan in a 425-degree oven. Combine the vegetables with a grain and cooked meat or fish, or top them with a fried egg to make power bowls.
3 cups cooked rice, Israeli (pearl) couscous, pearl barley, or farro
3 to 4 cups grilled or roasted vegetables (butternut squash, sweet potato, turnip, rutabaga, yellow and green squash, quartered red and yellow onions, beets, carrots, cauliflower pieces, halved Brussels sprouts)
Canned solid-pack tuna or breast of chicken
Place a mound of grain in one side of the bowl, and then add a mound of vegetables and a portion of the tuna or chicken. Drizzle the bowl with bottled Italian vinaigrette. Add a fried egg on each if desired. Makes six to eight servings.
Greek Rice Bowl
Tzatziki Sauce
2 cups grated cucumber
½ teaspoon dried dillweed
2 cups unflavored whole-milk Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon salt
Using the large holes of a box grater, grate an unpeeled cucumber to make 2 cups. Place the grated cucumber on double layers of coffee filters. Gather up the filters and gently squeeze to remove excess moisture. Mix in the additional ingredients and chill. Stir before using.
2 cups cooked, unbreaded chicken bites
2 cups cooked rice
Kalamata olives, halved cherry tomatoes, and/or sweet onion cut in thin crescents
Crumbled feta cheese
Toss cooked chicken pieces with some of the sauce. Place ½-cup rice in each bowl. Add a section of chicken and sections of vegetables of your choice. Scatter with crumbled feta and spoon on additional sauce. Makes four servings.
Suggested garnish: Add lemon wedges.
Hawaiian Poke Bowl
Traditionally prepared with ahi tuna, poke can be made with firm, cooked seafood, chicken, or diced tofu. Use your choice of raw vegetables.
3 to 4 cups cooked rice
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sriracha
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon light corn syrup or honey
14 to 16 ounces diced ahi tuna, cooked and diced firm fish, diced chicken, or diced tofu
3 cups cut vegetables (sliced cucumber, radishes, sweet pepper, matchstick carrots, shelled edamame, thawed peas)
2 avocados, sliced
Cook the rice according to package directions and set aside.
Whisk together the soy sauce, sesame oil, lemon juice or rice vinegar, sriracha, brown sugar, and corn syrup or honey. Add fish, chicken, or tofu and toss lightly.
Marinate for 15 minutes. Place a cup of rice in each bowl, and around it arrange separate sections of tuna or tofu, and vegetables. Top with avocado slices. Makes four servings.
Suggested garnish: Add sliced scallions or toasted sesame seeds.
Japanese Salmon Bowl
If you don’t eat raw fish, the salmon can be poached, baked, or pan fried and then cut in cubes.
4 cups cooked rice
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon chili oil (optional)
12 ounces cubed sashimi salmon or diced poached salmon
2 cups deli coleslaw
Cook the rice according to package directions and set aside.
Combine the soy sauce, vinegar, and oil(s), and then fold in the cooked or raw salmon. Let the mixture stand for 15 minutes. Place a portion of the rice in each bowl, and then add a mound of salmon and a mound of coleslaw. Shower the bowl with toppings of your choice. Serve at room temperature or chilled. Makes four servings.
Suggested toppings: Add red sweet pepper slivers, sliced avocado, sliced scallions, thawed peas, shelled edamame, or toasted sesame seeds.
Korean Bibimbap Bowl
4 cups cooked rice (or wheat berries, barley, or other hearty grain)
Bottled Asian-style sesame dressing
1 cup julienne carrots
1 medium red onion, cut in thin crescents
15-ounce can French-cut green beans, well drained
1 can solid-pack albacore tuna, drained
Olive oil for frying
4 eggs
Cook the grain according to package directions. In each shallow bowl, make a mound of the cooked grain, filling a third of the bowl. Toss the vegetables with a little of the sesame dressing, drain them, and add them to the bowl. In a third mound, add chunks of tuna. Drizzle the entire bowl with additional sesame dressing. Just before serving, fry four eggs sunny side up in olive oil, season them to taste, and top each bowl with an egg. Makes four servings.
Suggested garnishes: Add thinly sliced seeded jalapeno, sliced radishes and scallions, and/or garlic croutons.
Buddha Bowl
A generic term for almost any combination of rice and vegetables, a Buddha bowl is up to your taste and imagination to prepare. Here’s one way.
2 cups brown rice
½ cup sliced celery
½ cup shelled edamame
Bottled Asian dressing such as sesame or ginger
3 cups vegetables (use a variety of three or four, such as shredded red and green cabbage, chopped spinach or kale, matchstick carrots, sliced cucumber, sliced radishes, a little shredded daikon, julienne beets, snow peas, or sliced mushrooms)
4 hard-cooked eggs, sliced (optional)
2 avocados, sliced
Bring 4 cups of water to a boil and stir in the rice. Cook for 10 minutes, and then add the celery and edamame; cook until the rice is tender. Stir in 2 tablespoons of the bottled Asian dressing and set aside.
Place a mound of the rice mixture in each bowl and surround it with the arrangements of vegetables (and egg if using). Drizzle the bowl with more dressing. Garnish to taste. Makes six to eight servings.
Suggested garnish: Add lemon or lime wedges, black or white sesame seeds, slivers of red sweet pepper, or sliced scallions.
Indian Butter Bowl
Traditionally, Indian butter bowls are very spicy and made with chicken, although Delhi-style butter bowls also can be made meatless. Here is my shorter — and less fiery — route to India.
2 to 3 cups cooked rice
1 head cauliflower, cut in florets, OR 2 cups fully cooked chicken nuggets, thawed
½ stick butter OR 1/4 cup ghee
1/4 cup minced garlic
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup heavy whipping cream, divided
Salt
Pepper
Cook the rice in water or broth according to package directions.
If using cauliflower, steam or cook it al dente in water or broth and then drain. If using chicken nuggets, set them aside for now. Heat the butter and stir in the garlic, onion, garam masala, and tomato paste. Stir in the tomato sauce and then fold in the cauliflower or chicken nuggets and half of the cream. Heat through. Adjust the seasonings to taste.
Place the cooked rice in one side of each bowl and carefully fill the other half with the butter mixture. Drizzle with additional cream to taste. Makes four servings.
Suggested garnish: Add minced parsley or cilantro, sliced scallions, sunflower nuts, avocado, or chopped plum tomato.
More Bowl Games
*Substitute prepared ramen, soba noodles, or shredded lettuce for rice or other grains.
*Here’s one choice for a protein: Whisk two or three eggs with a tablespoon of water. Season and cook without stirring in a 10-inch skillet. Turn out on a cutting board and cut in thin ribbons.
*Top bowls with fresh sprouts or crisp onion rings, sweet potato fries, or potato sticks.
*Many bowls can be assembled up to two days ahead. Cover and refrigerate, then add dressing when ready to serve.
*Garnishes that add a touch of sweetness include shredded coconut or dried, diced pineapple or mango.
*Wake up taste buds with ethnic condiments such as kimchi, gochuchung pepper paste, and chutney.
Share Your Favorite Recipes.
If you have a recipe you enjoy making in your RV, share it with Janet at janetgroene@yahoo.com (put FMCA in the subject line).
Visit Janet at CampAndRVCook.blogspot.com, where new recipes and tips are added weekly; a subscription for e-reader devices is available at http://amzn.to/1DsP67t. Janet’s books, including the second edition of Cooking Aboard Your RV, are available in bookstores and at Amazon.com.