One Bowl Meals: 12 ideas & tips for creating your own

One Bowl Meals are a great way of eating a variety of different foods including loads of vegetables.  They’re also perfect for using up leftovers plus odds and ends of veg, helping you reduce food waste and save money.

Take a look at my examples, then use the tips plus your imagination to create your own One Bowl Meals using what’s in YOUR fridge.

Some people call these bowls ‘nutrition’, ‘nourish’ or (my pet hate) ‘Buddha’ bowls. But I prefer the more down to earth term: dinner!

In this post, rather than detailed recipes, I want to give you ideas, inspiration and tips for creating your own One Bowl Meals. Think of these bowls as jumping off points: use elements from different bowls and use whatever you happen to have in your fridge or cupboard to create a complete meal.

FROZEN FRUIT = NO WASTE

This first bowl highlights the usefulness of frozen fruit alongside fresh.

I always keep bags of frozen fruit in the house. Not only are they economical, they usually have a long life so there’s no need to worry about them going off or creating waste. Combine them with fresh fruit, maybe that’s a little over ripe, and you have a great breakfast or even dessert.

In this bright bowl the smoothie mix, whizzed up in a blender, was made from fresh avocado that had gone a little squidgy, frozen blueberries plus some banana which I’d sliced and frozen just before it’d gone too ripe. There’s also a little plain yogurt in there for creaminess and to make the bowl more filling. I often add oats to the mix too.

On top are fresh nectarines and kiwi fruit, frozen raspberries and a sprinkle of seeds. For extra texture and variety you could also sprinkle over some of my toasted coconut-based Grain Free Granola which keeps for weeks in the fridge.

LEFTOVERS IN ONE BOWL MEALS

One Bowl Meals are great for using up leftovers. While it might be tempting to throw away small amounts of leftovers which you know won’t be enough to make another meal, get into the habit of freezing them and you can combine several at a later date.

For this fantastically flavoursome meal, I dug out two lots of leftover pork and used them in a one bowl noodle dish. One lot of pork was diced belly in a Chinese five spice sauce, the other was shoulder which I’d simply pressure cooked.

I drained most of the sauce from the belly and used it to coat rice noodles. I fried the meats together until they were crispy.

To complete the bowl, I roasted shredded cabbage and leeks (which left my hands free to stir-fry the meats).

I think almost all One Bowl Meals benefit from raw as well as cooked vegetables. Here I added home sprouted alfalfa plus a crunchy salad of raw shredded vegetables which included homemade Thai pickled shallots dressed with some of their pickling juice.

ROASTED VEGETABLES IN ONE BOWL MEALS

If you’ve followed me on social media at all, you’ll know that I use a lot of roasted vegetables in my One Bowl Meals. I even wrote a blog series about roasted vegetables as I think they’re a really useful way of reaching your minimum 5 a day.

For the bowl you see here, I decided to make roasted carrots and beetroots a little more interesting by cutting them hasselback style.

This means making cuts along the length of the vegetable, without going all the way through. It’s more commonly done with potatoes, but works with almost any veg. I like it because it allows any seasonings to get right inside and makes them more crispy too. For the last 10 minutes of roasting I brushed the root veg with a mix of miso paste, honey, soy sauce and chilli flakes.

The creamy dressing is made with feta cheese and yogurt, flavoured with mint. I make this a lot to dress all sorts of One Bowl Meals. Get the recipe here: Feta Dressing.

Besides simple salad ingredients like lettuce, tomato, radish & cucumber, there’s Crispy Chickpeas. I love the crunch these bring and you can learn how to make them here: Crispy Chickpeas.

DRESSINGS & DIPS FOR ONE BOWL MEALS

I think most One Bowl Meals benefit from a dressing or dip that can bring the different elements together. The Feta Dressing mentioned above, as well as tahini based sauces, I use regularly.

But sometimes, often in a rush, I’ll just put a few ingredients together and see what happens. That was the case with the kimchi and tahini dressing you see here.

Smoked Salmon Paté

NEEDS MUST: PERFECTION NOT REQUIRED

While we might benefit from nutritionally perfectly balanced One Meal Bowls, that’s probably not a realistic goal. And a constant striving for perfection is probably not very healthy in itself (that’s my excuse anyway).

But using what we have, we can still have a meal that’s satisfying, full of natural foods and pretty darned tasty too.

The bowl here is a case in point. Apart from the lack of raw veg, it’s more carb-heavy than I’d usually eat during the week.

But I was home alone and wanted to use up various bits and bobs. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it that much, although ended up loving it.

As you can see, I went hasselback style again with the baked sweet potato. Here I rubbed it with olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin and garlic granules.

As the oven was on anyway I decided to cook most of the other elements in there too, including Crispy Chickpeas again. There’s also parsnip fries. I used to think I didn’t like parsnips very much until I started eating them like this: flavoured with cumin and garlic plus a drop of maple syrup to take the bitter edge off.

Some sweetheart cabbage and pak choi went into the oven too, just long enough to wilt it.

Bringing everything together was that old favourite Tahini Dressing, this time with chopped coriander and parsley.

Although I don’t always add grains to my One Meal Bowls, bulgur wheat is a particular favourite. Apart from liking its nutty taste, it’s  convenient as it doesn’t need simmering. Just pour over boiling water and leave to soak. It’ll be nicely plump in less than 30 minutes when you can ping it in the microwave if you want it warm.

SEASONAL GOODIES

While Britain has moved away from the ‘meat and two veg’ stereotype, according to some research, 60 per cent of people in the UK eat the same seven meals every single week. Incredibly, most of those will have had the same schedule of meals for nearly four years!

I think One Bowl Meals with lots of different ingredients can get us out of that habit. And especially if you include seasonal ingredients.

My absolute favourite seasonal ingredient has to be asparagus. During the UK season, which runs roughly from St George’s Day in April to the summer solstice in June, we eat as much of it as we can get our hands on.

Simmered until just crisp-tender, it’s wonderful put onto a hot griddle pan until lightly charred. With other Spring and Summer ingredients like peas, broad beans, mint, chives and homegrown Pea Shoots it made the wonderful bowl above.

Also in there are roasted cherry tomatoes, fried halloumi and quinoa.

EASY WAY TO 5 A DAY

You may have noticed that virtually all these bowls are based largely on vegetables plus some fruits. I find this is a great way to get your MINIMUM five portions per day (remember a portion is around 80 grams).

Just make sure your One Bowl Meals also include some protein in the form of meat, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts or pulses.

I reckon the completely plant-based bowl above contained three to four portions of vegetables. There’s spice-roasted carrots, cauliflower and onions, crispy roasted cabbage and chickpeas.

Although it may not look much, the star of the show is in the centre. It’s baba ganoush: that hummus-like dip where the chickpeas are replaced by smoky aubergine. In my version it has a whole head of roasted garlic too! Get the recipe here: Baba Ganoush with Roasted Garlic.

TRY IT. YOU MIGHT LIKE IT

One protein we don’t eat a lot of in our house is tofu. Other half likes it though and we do eat it occasionally, especially if we’re sharing a dish at a Thai restaurant.

I think it’s much improved if you can get tofu crispy, so here I browned cubes of smoked tofu in a pan and finished it off in the oven. For the last few minutes I tossed it in a homemade peanut-chilli sauce.

Other half liked the flavour but said it was overcooked. I thought it was the best tofu I’d had. But only because it tasted a bit like fried smoked bacon rinds! 😄

The point is, the tofu was just one element in the bowl so it was still a good meal with lots more to love. We had it with Japanese wheat and buckwheat soba noodles, steamed green veg as well as quick-pickled raw veg.

Again, a gutsy sauce brought the whole thing together. It was a simplified version of my Thai Peanut Dressing with peanut butter, sweet chilli sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, grated ginger and fish sauce.

FLAVOUR FOR FREE

There’s no way you can guess one of the tastiest elements in this next bowl, because you can’t see it! You might even sometimes have it in your house, but throw it away.

Once upon a time, almost everyone would save the fat from roasting meats. The most common was probably beef dripping. After cooking the roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and making the gravy, any remaining beefy juices would be put into an old cup (probably chipped and with the handle missing) and kept for spreading on bread.

I still keep virtually all fats left over from cooking meats. Mind you, I do put them in clean jars in the fridge rather than a manky cup in a pantry.

In this bowl, shredded greens were sauteed in the fat and juices kept after roasting a chicken. Its silkiness and meaty flavour went wonderfully well with the iron-y, slight bitterness of the cabbage.

Chicken fat is actually one of my favourite cooking mediums right now. Try it when making this Chinese style Egg Foo Yung omelette and you’ll see why.

Also in the bowl were bulgar wheat with sauteed mushrooms, hazelnuts and peas plus sweet potato and red onions. roasted with fennel seeds plus Feta Dressing.

EXTRA TOUCHES

I think it’s often the extra little touches, like herbs and sprinkles of this and that, which make your One Bowl Meals even more interesting and varied.

As you can see from lots of the images here, I’m a big fan of toasted black and white sesame seeds!

But you don’t want to be dry frying a couple of teaspoonfuls each time you want them. So I make a bigger batch which keeps in the cupboard for several weeks.

And for even more variety I always keep a jar in the fridge of mixed nuts and seeds roasted with things like soy sauce and garlic granules. That’s what you can see sprinkled over the bowl above and I show you how to make it here: Savoury Granola.

If you want to make sure you always have some fresh greens in your One Bowl Meals, as well as the pea shoots linked to earlier, why not have a go at growing your own microgreens to add to the raw elements and just liberally sprinkle over everything?

Also in this bowl are old favourites sweet potato and red onion roasted with fennel seeds, fried halloumi and quinoa.

The dressing is homemade yogurt simply flavoured with garlic crushed with a little salt, plus a squeeze of lemon.

SEE OLD FAVOURITES IN A NEW WAY

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when creating One Meal Bowls. Sometimes, all you need to do is see an old favourite in a new way.

Like most people I suppose, I always used to eat my falafel in a wrap. I’d try to squeeze in as much veg and sauces as I could but it never felt like there was quite enough. Not without getting into a right old mess anyway.

But more often these days, I’ll have my falafel minus the wrap with lots more crunchy raw veg and pickles instead.

I like it on a bed of kale (scrunched with a little salt to tenderize it) with tahini dressing and a hot sauce like the zhug you’ll find in my Baked Falafel post.

Likewise, meaty burgers don’t have to be eaten in buns! How about this bowl with mini beef patties topped with grilled cheese, loads of salad, pickles, garlic mayo, ketchup and sweet potato fries?

IF IN DOUBT, CHUCK IT IN

I’m sure the ‘less is more’ brigade will disagree but, sometimes, just throwing together all sorts of odds and sods can make a wonderful meal.

That was the case with this bowl. I had no idea of what I was going to cook for dinner. I knew I wanted to include chicken breast, some local Dovedale Blue cheese and also use up lots of oddments in the fridge.

Anyway, I just started prepping stuff without really having an idea of whether it would all go together. But what we ended up with was fantastically good, with loads of bold flavour. Just what we like!

Proof that almost anything could go together in your One Meal Bowls, here’s the rather long list of what we had:

• chicken browned in a griddle pan then finished in the oven
• spring onions marinated in balsamic, olive oil, smoked paprika, garlic, then griddled in the pan used for the chicken
• carrots & onions roasted with fennel & cumin seeds, garlic & maple syrup
• roasted tomatoes
• quick roasted, crispy cavolo nero
• cucumber chunks
• home sprouted alfalfa seeds
• homegrown broccoli micro leaves
• slightly squidgy diced avocado
• chunks of Dovedale Blue cheese
• Dovedale Blue, garlic & yogurt dressing
• sprinkles of poppy, sesame, pumpkin & hemp seeds
• at the bottom of the bowl (but you can’t see it because there’s so much else!) is toasted bulgur wheat

INSPIRED?

I hope you’ve been inspired by some of these fantastic One Bowl Meals and will go on to make your own. Or maybe vary those you already eat.

I’d love to know what you think. Why not leave a comment with your suggestions for One Bowl Meals?