Color! Food should have it. Not only because it makes the plate prettier, but it likely ensures there’s something healthy in your meal. I mean, I’d love to eat Spicy Spam Mac every single day of the week but, sadly, you’ve gotta get some actual vegetables in there once in a while.
A traditional Buddha Bowl should be filled with roasted vegetables, some sort of protein (via beans or, as is here: avocado and egg), and a grain such as brown rice or quinoa, so making your own Buddha bowl is pretty simple, and you shouldn’t have to follow any sort of instructions or directions to make your own. Just have fun with it and experiment with flavors, textures, and spices.
Pretty sure all the Buddha Bowl requirements are covered in this dish, but the real star here is the Egg-in-the-hole avocado — never tried it before, but at the and of the whole process, that was my favorite part: the slightly runny egg and hot avocado definitely mixed in here, and I urge you to try it if you haven’t.
But a warning, don’t cook it like I did. The instructions below are only so I could present something pretty in the final plate. It makes me wonder about other cooking blogs, to be honest. All the final plates they present look absolutely amazing at first glance, and trick you into thinking your final meals will appear straight-out-of-a-magazine. All my experience in cooking and following directions gives me a favorable and flavorful dish, but never looking quite like the meal pictured (which drew me in to the recipe in the first place). For this one, I’m giving you an outline of what I did. But to save yourself some time…you should cook all your veggies in one pan and don’t worry if it turns out ugly — this one’s full of flavor.
Buddha Bowl with Avocado Egg-in-the-Hole
Ingredients
- 1 Avocado, sliced in half (one half reserved in a sandwich bag in the fridge)
- 1 Egg
- 1 fistful Baby Spinach
- 3-4 Brussels’ Sprouts
- 1 carrot, peeled and sliced
- 1/4 red bell pepper, diced.
- 1 small head Broccoli, chopped
- 1/2 can Chickpeas, drained
- 1 habanero, sliced (if you want some spice)
- spices: salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne, garlic powder
Directions
- Chop all the veggies as prescribed.
- Preheat the oven to 375°
- once it’s up to temp, place the avocado half in a baking dish, crack an egg into it. Salt and pepper to taste. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until whites have set.
- This will allow you to have a runny yolk to burst and spread over the other ingredients. Bake it longer if you’re some sort of hard-yolk freak.
- Get out two non-stick frying pans
- heat two burners to high and oil the pans with olive oil.
- in one pan, caramelize the brussels’ sprouts, tossing them with salt.
- in the other, empty the can of chickpeas and season with a few healthy shakes of cumin, and toss them frequently until slightly blackened.
- When the brussels’ sprouts have caramelized, remove to a serving bowl, and replace with more oil and the broccoli. Season with garlic powder and toss until blackened at the edges. Remove to the serving bowl and place opposite the sprouts.
- Continue tossing the chickpeas if necessary and remove to the serving bowl on one side between the sprouts and broccoli.
- Now you should have two free pans, still on high. Add oil to both.
- in one: place the carrots and bell pepper. Season with cayenne and toss frequently.
- in the other: drop the temp a bit and add the spinach leaves; season with salt and pepper.
- The spinach will finish first; place around the serving bowl in between the other cooked vegetables.
- as the carrot mixture finishes, add it to the last open space in the serving bowl.
- Remove the avocado from the oven, scoop from its skin, and place in the nest of vegetables.
- Grab a napkin and a fork and eat!
I topped this with an unappealing splatter of tangy hot sauce I whipped up from Greek Yogurt and El Yucateco Habanero Hot Sauce and also added some diced tomatoes to the mixture.
Overall? delicious, healthy, and gorgeous to look at. And you can go ahead and follow that recipe and instructions (if they make sense) to make your own version of this. But, if you want to save time, or if you’re one of those “it’s-all-going-to-the-same-place” kind of person, just throw those veggies and chickpeas and spices into one pan and fry them up together.
This is really easy to make kid friendly, and most of the ingredients here shouldn’t be too offensive, even for a picky eater. Give it a shot, or make your own version of this and let me know how it turned out.
Side note: so, I’ve been a reddit user for about 10 years now; five years ago, someone in the cooking subreddit introduced the idea of users participating in a “52 Weeks of Cooking” challenge, where each participant comes up with and creates a dish based on a specific food item, topic, idea, or recipe. I’ve been meaning to participate in this challenge every year, but never had the opportunity. This year? It’s happening. And week 1 of 2018 has the theme of: New to You, so I’ll be spending the next couple of days trying to find something I’ve never made before. Be prepared to see recipes based on the topics from this subreddit throughout the next year.
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