Winter Buddha bowl
- Prepare
- less than 30 mins
- Cook
- 30 mins to 1 hour
- Serve
- Serves 4
A real winter bowl for the soul. Absolutely packed full of fibre with roast pumpkin, crispy chickpeas, charred sprouts, zesty red cabbage and a creamy avocado sauce to bring it all together.
For this recipe you will need a food processor to make the sauce.
Each serving provides 212 kcal, 11.4g protein, 29.4g carbohydrate (of which 8.3g sugars), 3.2g fat (of which 0.4g saturates), 10g fibre and 1g salt.
Ingredients
For the bowl
- 1 small pumpkin or squash (about 800g/1lb 12oz), flesh cut into small chunks and seeds retained, cleaned and patted dry
- 400g tin chickpeas, drained, rinsed and patted dry
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp paprika
- 300g/10½oz Brussels sprouts, trimmed, peeled and roughly chopped into quarters
- ½ small red cabbage, finely sliced
- ½–1 lemon, juice only, to taste (see Tip)
- 2 x 250g pouches microwavable brown and wild rice (or regular cooked brown rice)
- 100g/3½oz fresh spinach leaves
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- vegetarian hard cheese, finely grated, to serve (optional)
For the avocado sauce
- 2 ripe avocados, peeled, stone removed and flesh roughly chopped
- 2–3 tbsp olive oil
- ½–1 lemon, juice only, to taste (see Tip)
- 1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7.
Put the pumpkin, pumpkin seeds and chickpeas on a large baking tray. Add the oil and paprika and toss thoroughly to coat. Season with salt and pepper and roast for 10 minutes.
Remove the baking tray from the oven and shake it. Add the sprouts and toss in the pumpkin mixture to coat in oil. Roast everything for another 20 minutes, giving the tray another little shake halfway through.
Meanwhile, massage the cabbage with half of the lemon juice and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Add more lemon juice if preferred. Chill in the fridge.
To make the avocado sauce, blend the avocados, oil, half of the lemon juice and garlic in a food processor or with a hand-held mixer until smooth. Add a small splash of water to achieve a good drizzling consistency. Season generously with salt and pepper and add more lemon juice if preferred. Set aside.
When ready to serve, cook the rice pouches in the microwave according to packet instructions.
Serve the rice in bowls and then add the spinach, red cabbage, pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, chickpeas and sprouts to the bowls. Drizzle over the avocado sauce and season with salt and pepper. Serve with a sprinkling of the cheese, if using.
Recipe tips
Pat the chickpeas dry with some kitchen paper to absorb any excess moisture as this helps to get them nice and crisp.
Scoop the pumpkin seeds out of the pumpkin, remove any fleshy bits and pat them dry with kitchen paper.
Do not overcrowd the baking tray as the ingredients need space to roast properly – use a second tray if needed for the sprouts. If using a second tray, you will need to season the sprouts separately with an extra ½ tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp paprika, salt and pepper.
For the cabbage and the sauce, start by using the juice of ½ lemon. Taste and adjust to using the juice of 1 lemon, depending on your preferred level of sharpness.
