Cilantro Lime Rice Chicken Bowl

This is a great weeknight recipe, and if you make a lot, you can enjoy lunch the next day.  I can usually have this ready to eat in 45 minutes or less. As it is written, this recipe serves four people. you could cut the ingredients in half if only cooking for two.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of ground chicken

2 ½ cups of cilantro lime rice

2 tablespoons of low sodium taco seasoning

1 tablespoon of garlic salt

½ tablespoon of black pepper

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 or 2 cans of seasoned black beans (I prefer Bush’s brand)

Toppings:  you can top with anything you like, I usually prepare these toppings.

Shredded lettuce

Chopped bell peppers

Chopped jalapeno pepper

Chopped onion

Sliced avocado or guacamole

Salsa or pico de gallo

Shredded Mexican cheese

Black olives

Sour cream

Tortilla chips (for a crunch)

Cook rice according to instructions – I use two and ½ cups of rice with five cups of water, bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer on low for 25 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, add two tablespoons of olive oil to a sauté pan and cook the ground chicken. Once chicken is well crumbled, add the taco seasoning, garlic salt and black pepper.  Turn heat to the lowest setting while the rice cooks.

Also while the rice is cooking, add the beans to a pot and cook on medium to low for 15 minutes or until simmers.

While the rice is cooking, I also chop the veggies for toppings.  I put all of the toppings on our kitchen island so that everyone can prepare their bowl as they like.

Once everything is prepared, I add rice to the bottom of my bowl, top with ground chicken, add the black beans, then add cheese on top of beans, then top with my favorite toppings.  My husband likes to crumble tortilla chips on top of his bowl.

Here is a photo of my serving - I top with a lot of veggies so you can’t even see the rice, beans or chicken!

I bought these shallow bowls from Target a while back just for when we make burrito bowls! As it turns out, we use them all the time for salads, chili, beans and rice, etc.

Shallow Dinner Bowl from Target - $4.00 each

Variations:

There are so many possible variations to this recipe, and we love them all!  Here are some ideas:

Instead of ground chicken, try:

Ground beef

Grilled beef

Grilled chicken (really good!)

Ground turkey

All veggie toppings such as roasted onions, yellow squash, zuchini squash, red and yellow bell peppers, etc.

Instead of black beans, try:

Refried beans

Pinto beans

Instead of cilantro lime rice, try:

Plain white rice

Brown rice

Spanish rice

Would you believe that I have never eaten at Chipotle? I know, crazy, right? We rarely go out to eat, I cook most nights at home. I would assume that this recipe is similar to a Chipotle bowl, although I think they use grilled chicken, which we have before and it is AWESOME that way! I usually make these at least once a week, so we change up the protein so we don’t get sick of them.

What do you think?  Will you try this recipe, or have you tried something similar?  What do you think will be your favorite variation of this recipe?  Drop your thoughts in the comments below or email me at hello@kinshipandvine.com