Mediterranean Brown Rice Bowl
My Mediterranean Bowl is filling and healthy. Packed with brown rice, lentils, tahini, & roasted tomatoes, it's the perfect one bowl meal.
Servings: 5
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Ingredients
For the rice:
- 4 cups brown rice, cooked
For the lentils:
- ½ cup dry lentils, rinsed
- 1 cup water
- ¼ tsp sea salt
For the Smoky Sweet Tahini Sauce:
- ¼ cup + 3 Tbsp tahini
- ½ cup water
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 dash pepper
- ¼ tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, or more to taste
- 1 tsp maple syrup
For the tomatoes:
- 10 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
Everything else
- 1 15 oz can chickpeas, drained
- ⅓ cup pine nuts
- ⅓ cup parsley, minced
- ½ tsp sea salt
- fresh feta cheese, for garnish, optional
Instructions
Cook the brown rice
- Cook the brown rice by your preferred method. You need 4 cups of cooked brown rice for this recipe.
- Note: I prefer using my rice cooker. 1 ½ cups dry brown rice and 3 cups water in my rice cooker gives me about 4 cups of perfectly cooked brown rice.
Cook the lentils
- While the rice cooks, rinse and drain the lentils. Add the lentils to a small sauce pan, and pour the 1 cup of water over the top. Bring the lentils to a boil.
- Once boiling, bring the heat down to low, and simmer the lentils uncovered until most of the water is absorbed, about 25 minutes.
- Now turn off the heat, and stir ¼ tsp salt into the lentils. They'll be a little salty at this point. This is good, it will help the lentils retain and bring flavor when we mix all the bowl ingredients together.
Roast the tomatoes
- While the lentils and rice cook, you can roast your tomatoes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Line a cookie sheet with foil, and put the halved cherry tomatoes, sea salt, and olive oil on top. Now toss them together with your hands.
- After the olive oil and sea salt evenly coat each tomato half, arrange each tomato so that they are all membrane side up, skin side down. If the membrane side of the tomato is down while baking, the tomatoes will stick to the foil while roasting and be difficult to get off the cooking sheet.
- Roast the tomatoes for 20 minutes, until they've shriveling up, released juices, and the skin has bronwed on the bottom. Tomatoes are done, set aside.
Make the tahini sauce
- While the tomatoes roast, make the tahini sauce. Simply add all the sauce ingredients to a small bowl. Whisk it all together until everything is incorporated and mostly smooth. Sauce is done.
Bring it all together
- At this point, your rice, lentils, and tomatoes should all be cooked and ready to mix together.
- Start by adding the brown rice and lentils to a large mixing bowl. Add ½ tsp salt, and mix the salt, brown rice, and lentils together. Now add the chickpeas, pin nuts, and parsley. Stir to incorporate.
- Now add the tahini sauce to the bowl. I usually use the full amount of sauce from the recipe, but start with about half the sauce and add more, if desired.
- Last, carefully add the tomatoes to the bowl. Fold them in very gently so the tomatoes maintain their shape somewhat. Set a few aside to garnish on each serving, if desired.
Serve and enjoy!
- Serve this Mediterranean bowl as a meal by itself, or with my Crisp Greek Salad.
- This dish is great at any temperature, and makes excellent leftovers for lunch the next day.
Notes
This dish is vegetarian.
This dish is gluten-free.
This dish is vegan if you don't garnish with feta.