Naked Chicken Burrito Bowls
Build your own healthy Tex-Mex meal with deconstructed chicken burritos in bowls.Â
A healthy yet tasty dinner that can please every family member? These Naked Chicken Burrito Bowls are pretty darn close to fitting this challenging criteria.
This Tex-Mex dinner delight comes from Debbi over at Debbi Does Dinner Healthy & Low Calorie, who I was assigned to this month for the Secret Recipe Club.
What I like about Debbi's blog and her recipes is there's no fuss involved AND they all clock in at around 500 calories - something this dietitian can get behind.
I also like how she made her own taco seasoning vs. buying the prepackaged stuff for this recipe. And the 3-ingredient cilantro lime rice is a great side dish to make anytime. These days, I'm loving both basmati brown rice and jasmine brown rice. (I get them at Trader Joe's.) Both are terrific options if you want to try to eat more whole grains but regular brown rice just doesn't do it for you. (You could also do half white rice and half brown rice at first to slowly up your whole grain intake.)
[bctt tweet="Healthy Tex Mex meal to please everyone: Naked Chicken Burrito Bowls @tspbasil" via="no"]
Besides the healthy ingredients, I love that this is basically a customized dinner recipe. Vegetarians can add more beans; or you could cook up some shrimp or tilapia to make seafood burrito bowls instead. The variations are almost endless. I served it with corn tortillas one night and ate it over romaine lettuce the next day as a salad.Â
Naked Chicken Burrito Bowls
- Yield: 6 - 8 servings 1x
Description
Build your own healthy Tex-Mex meal with deconstructed chicken burritos in bowls.Â
Ingredients
For the chicken:
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into ÂĽ-inch strips
- 1 ½ tablespoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ÂĽ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- ÂĽ teaspoon salt
- ÂĽ teaspoon pepper
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
For the rice:
- 3 cups water
- 1 ½ cups brown basmati rice or brown jasmine rice, rinsed
- ÂĽ cup chopped fresh cilantro
- Juice of one large lime
For the beans:
- 2 teaspoons canola oil
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans or black beans, drained and rinsed well
For the toppings:
- 1 ½ cups shredded Cabot Light Cheddar or Cabot Pepper Jack
- 1 avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced
- Shredded romaine lettuce
- Diced onions
- Fresh Salsa
- Cilantro
- Corn tortillas
Instructions
- For the chicken, place chicken in a large resealable plastic bag. Add chili powder, smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper and 1 tablespoon canola oil. Seal bag and massage together until chicken is well coated. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
- To cook chicken, coat a large skillet with cooking spray and place over medium heat. Add chicken with marinade and saute for 7 -8 minutes until chicken is cooked through, stirring every minute or so. Remove from pan.
- For the rice, bring water to a boil in a large sauce pan. Add rice, reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Cook for 35-40 minutes (or follow instructions on package.) Fluff rice with a fork and mix in cilantro and lime juice.
- For the beans, heat 2 teaspoons canola oil in a medium skillet. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add beans and cook until warm, about 1 - 2 minutes.
- Serve chicken, rice, beans and all other toppings in serving bowls and let everyone fix their own burrito bowl.
Notes
Adapted from Debbi Does Dinner Healthy & Low Calorie's Naked Chicken Burrito Bowls
Seriously, double this recipe when making it because the leftovers could be made into a new lunch/dinner combo each consecutive day (until they are gone!)
Do you like Tex-Mex food? Do you cook it at home often?
So glad that you liked this! We eat these ALL THE TIME. We can all make our meals our own way. Mine vegetarian and the rest of the family with meat. Perfect.
I had your blog too for the Secret Recipe Club! I so loved looking through all your amazing recipes, thank you so much!! 🙂
We ate them again last night! I made corn tostadas, heated the beans, rice and cheese in the oven on top and then everyone got to pick what went on them. A keeper recipe for sure 🙂
I'm a HUGE fan of burrito bowls. I've never been a big tortilla fan, unless they're fried into chips or smothered in enchilada sauce. So the bowl option suits me perfectly. My fave topping (of course along with the Pepper Jack 🙂 are sautéed peppers and onions and a dollop of Greek-style yogurt. Mmmmmm...
Yum, yum, yum!! We had taco salad night last week, topped with some leftover crumbled tortilla chips, and we all loved it, b/c we could all customize our own salads. I can see making up a batch of the chicken and beans ahead of time, then re-heating and serving with toppings for a super simple weeknight meal. Thanks for sharing!
Hurrah for taco salad, too! I used the leftovers and made tostadas. So good 🙂
Love burrito bowls- these look great!
This is definitely my kind of meal! Perfect pick!
What a perfect dinner in a bowl! Love this!
I LOVE the look of these! These look absolutely wonderful what a great SRC pick! Karen visiting from Group C too!
Your burrito bowls look amazing! What a healthy, delicious dinner option (and great SRC dish!).
What an interesting idea. And a great way to please everyone with just one meal!!!
This looks really good, and I like that it uses brown rice! For some reason it hadn't occurred to me that there would be jasmine brown rice, and basmati brown rice, and undoubtedly every other variety of brown rice as well. In my mind, there was always just... brown rice!
One little thing- I read the post about 3 times and couldn't find anything about how to cook the chicken, am I missing it? Guessing you're supposed to just toss it in a big skillet and saute away 🙂
Oh my gosh, thank you for this catch! That step was deleted from the recipe before I posted it for some reason! But you are right, just saute in a big skillet for about 8 minutes until chicken is cooked through. And definitely look for the the basmati or jasmine brown rice - so so good - I get them at Trader Joe's.
would it be okay for me to put the chicken ingredient part into a crockpot for about 7 hrs?
yes! Great way to make it a slow cooker meal 🙂
Hi
Can this be frozen?
Yes I would think it could be frozen. I would freeze the rice, chicken and beans separately and then get fresh topping for when you reheat as the toppings wouldn't freeze well.