Roasted Chickpea Quinoa Bowls with Creamy Vegan Ranch

February 28, 2024

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These roasted chickpea quinoa bowls are a high-protein, flavor-packed choice so as to add to your weekly meal prep or dinner rotation. They function fluffy, cooked quinoa, crispy baked tempeh bacon and roasted chickpeas, chopped romaine lettuce, and a beneficiant drizzle of creamy do-it-yourself vegan ranch dressing. Every bowl packs greater than twenty-five grams of plant protein, together with fiber, texture, taste, and coloration—what could possibly be higher?

A large, white bowl is filled with vegetables, roasted chickpeas, quinoa, and a creamy ranch dressing. The bowl is topped with pepitas.

The longer I domesticate a behavior of vegan meal prep, the extra I respect the worth of vegan fundamentals.

By “fundamentals,” I imply simple elements that may multitask effectively in meals. Fundamentals may embrace easy vegan proteins, do-it-yourself vegan cheeses, sauces, and snacks.

With the fitting fundamentals in your fridge, you possibly can go on to create what I consider as being “meeting” meals. They’re not a lot recipes with plenty of cooking steps a lot as the tip product of blending and matching.

More often than not, what I combine and match are mixtures of proteins, like beans, tofu, or tempeh, entire grains, sauces, and no matter greens I occur to have at residence.

These roasted chickpea quinoa bowls are an ideal instance of what’s doable once you take the time to organize a couple of strong vegan fundamentals. Huge taste, plenty of texture, and an particularly nutritious meal.

Due to not one, however three sources of plant protein—chickpeas, quinoa, and tempeh—certainly one of these bowls provides about twenty-five grams of protein.

Greens, beans, and grains are all ample sources of dietary fiber, iron, and phytonutrients. Right here, they’re introduced in a enjoyable, flavorful, and colourful approach.

Protein-packed meal prep

I’m in all probability a damaged file with the next message, however I believe it’s so necessary to place protein at entrance and heart in the case of vegan meal prep.

My reasoning is that the opposite macronutrients—fats and carbohydrates—are likely to deal with themselves.

When you eat a plant-based weight-reduction plan, with its ample choices of legumes, grains, grain merchandise, corn, and potatoes, it’s actually not laborious to acquire enough carbohydrates in your weight-reduction plan.

Remembering to incorporate a healthful fats supply with meals might require a little bit extra thought, but it surely occurs very simply. A drizzle of French dressing or olive oil, a sprinkling of toasted nuts or seeds, an avocado half or scoop of guacamole—all of this stuff may be added to your meal instantly.

With protein, it’s a little bit extra difficult.

In fact it’s not an enormous ask to open up a can of beans and add some to a salad or bowl.

Nonetheless, if you’d like a extremely well-seasoned protein—for instance, flavorful brothy beans, baked and marinated balsamic tofu, or savory tempeh meatballs to your subsequent bowl of pasta—you’ll must do some planning.

For me, planning = meal prep.

I can have plenty of nice concepts about upcoming meals that I’d wish to eat. But when I don’t carve out time every week to plan and execute meal prep, only a few of them will come to fruition.

As I wrote in my cookbook The Vegan Week,

“My enthusiasm for cooking will in all probability all the time wax and wane, however because of the behavior of meal prep, I handle to cook dinner and eat effectively even after I’m resistant or unmotivated. I turn out to be extra intentional about what I eat, and my meals turn out to be extra healthful. My style buds are grateful for range, and my physique is grateful for wise, balanced diet.”

A smart consumption of vegan protein is an enormous a part of how I conceptualize “balanced diet.” Meal prep is how I make it occur.

Two small baking sheets are lined with parchment paper and strips of vegan tempeh

An aluminum baking sheet is covered in crispy roasted chickpeas, which have just been pulled from the oven.

For this roasted chickpea quinoa bowl, you’ll meal prep three separate, good sources of protein.

These are:

Collectively, these three substances add as much as plenty of protein, and a diverse array of amino acids, at that.

Past their performance, these elements make the bowl a delight to eat. The chickpeas and tempeh bacon every present crispy texture, whereas the quinoa is tender and fluffy.

Via in a creamy dressing and bowl of crunchy greens, and also you’ve obtained a bowl that’s particularly stuffed with sensory delight.

An angled image of a glass mason jar, resting on a white surface. It contains a creamy vegan ranch dressing with herbs. — You should utilize both contemporary or dried herbs in your do-it-yourself vegan ranch, however I believe that contemporary herbs add essentially the most vibrant taste.

Creamy, do-it-yourself vegan ranch dressing

A phrase about that dressing: it’s a brand new invention for me, although I’ve been attempting to good a do-it-yourself ranch for years.

After experimenting with a number of substances and creamy bases, I known as upon my culinary MVP, cashew nuts, to create a wealthy, clean texture.

I like to make use of contemporary herbs within the vegan ranch, reasonably than dried, however my recipe presents choices for utilizing both.

For me, ranch dressing + smoky flavors seems like a pure, basic combo. Actually, it was this dressing that impressed the whole roasted chickpea quinoa bowl.

Nonetheless, dressings are one of many do-it-yourself fundamentals that I create most frequently, so I’ve options to give you if ranch isn’t your factor. Listed below are some:

The Vegan Week

Embrace the enjoyment of consuming do-it-yourself meals daily with the hearty and healthful recipes in The Vegan Week.

Whether or not you will have three, two, and even only one hour of time to spare, The Vegan Week will present you methods to batch cook dinner diverse, colourful, and comforting dishes over the weekend.

Methods to make roasted chickpea quinoa bowls

My finest recommendation for making these flavorful, successful bowls is to check out the varied elements, then take into consideration once you wish to meal prep them.

When you stagger the preparation course of, it’ll be really easy to only put the bowls collectively once you’re able to eat (or to pack up a meal).

After I put together a grain bowl like this one, I all the time deal with at the least one or two elements forward of time. Ideally, I put together all of them prematurely of assembling.

If you wish to take a extremely proactive method to the roasted chickpea quinoa bowls, you possibly can freeze one or a few the elements. Roasted chickpeas, tempeh bacon, and cooked quinoa can all be frozen for as much as 6 weeks.

With that stated, right here’s a walkthrough.

Step 1: Put together your protein elements in line with your schedule

Get a head begin on this recipe by getting ready at the least the crispy tempeh bacon and crispy roasted chickpeas. You can also make them collectively—as long as the oven goes to be on, you might as effectively multitask—or create them individually.

For the tempeh bacon, keep in mind that it wants a while to marinate (two hours) earlier than you bake it.

An overhead image of two small, white bowls. One contains crispy roasted chickpeas, while the other contains darkened, crispy baked tempeh bacon. — The crispy elements of this recipe, chickpeas and tempeh bacon, may be roasted across the similar time or ready individually, advance or proper earlier than mixing the bowls. Modify this to suit your schedule!

Step 2: Put together the quinoa

Quinoa takes much less time to cook dinner than many different grains, which makes it handy. Nonetheless, it may well typically be a little bit finicky.

With the intention to keep away from quinoa that’s too gummy or not tender sufficient, I like to recommend a 1:1.75 ratio of grain to cooking liquid.

I additionally advocate simmering the quinoa, lined, for precisely 13 minutes. Then, take away it from warmth and let it stand, lined, for an additional 5 minutes.

An overhead image of a silver saucepan, which is filled with fluffy, cooked quinoa. — 13 minutes of stovetop simmering, a 5 minute resting interval off warmth, and a few fluffing with a fork will guarantee tender, completely cooked quinoa every time.

Lastly, uncover the quinoa and fluff it with a fork.

Sure, a exact cooking time of 13 minutes might sound a little bit foolish. But I’ve discovered that the following pointers are the important thing to attaining completely cooked quinoa, meal after meal.

Step 3: Assemble your bowls

Lastly, it’s time to place your roasted chickpea quinoa bowls collectively.

Distribute the chopped romaine into 4 bowls. Divide the tempeh bacon, chickpeas, quinoa amongst them, then add a little bit heap of halved grape or cherry tomatoes.

Lastly, go forward and gown every bowl generously—smother the bowl, if you wish to!—with the creamy vegan ranch.

A white bowl holds greens, tomatoes, cooked quinoa, chickpeas, and some slices of tempeh bacon. — Grape tomatoes add coloration and juiciness to the chickpea quinoa ranch bowls.

I personally like to high these bowls with pepitas, a sort of shelled pumpkin seeds. When you like a little bit further crunch, you can additionally attempt topping the bowls with:

Some contemporary, chopped cilantro or parsley is a pleasant final touch as effectively.

Meal prep & storage

When you don’t plan to serve the roasted chickpea quinoa bowls instantly, then you possibly can retailer them in an hermetic container within the fridge for as much as 5 days.

There are two methods to go about this: you can assemble your “bowls” in meal prep storage containers (you will get my suggestions in my newbie’s information to vegan meal prep), or you possibly can retailer the elements individually and assemble as prepared.

In both case, I like to recommend storing the dressing by itself and including it proper earlier than you sit all the way down to eat.

Variations

As with many of the vegan bowls on this web site, there’s loads of area to fluctuate elements and make substitutions inside the roasted chickpea quinoa bowls.

Most notably, you should utilize store-bought roasted chickpeas or tempeh bacon rather than do-it-yourself. I really like the Tofurky model Smoky Maple Bacon specifically.

You can additionally commerce roasted chickpeas for plain, un-roasted chickpeas, straight from a can. The bowl may have rather less crunch, but it surely’ll nonetheless be stuffed with texture total.

Tempeh bacon may be changed by any of the next easy plant proteins:

You can additionally add a store-bought, baked tofu. A number of manufacturers supply ready-to-eat choices as of late.

Lastly, whereas I really like the crunch of chopped romaine within the bowls, there’s no purpose to not experiment with another sort of lettuce or numerous extra veggies.

Roasted pink peppers, broccoli florets, chopped cucumber, and shredded cabbage would all work properly within the recipe.

Lastly, it’s very rewarding to make do-it-yourself ranch, but it surely’s on no account a necessity. The Observe Your Coronary heart model and Primal Kitchen model every make good, store-bought vegan ranch dressings.

Extra nutritious vegan bowls to savor

When you love bowl for a meal prep dinner or meal prep lunch, I’ve loads of extra recipes so that you can discover.

Listed below are a couple of of my favorites, all of which put protein entrance and heart:

And right here’s the crunchy, satisfying new creation that I’m including to the record.