A Week of Easy and Delicious One-Bowl Dinners

When I’m looking for a meal that’s healthful, nourishing, and (most importantly) easy, my favorite solution is a grain bowl. (In fact, I love them so much I wrote a whole cookbook about grain bowls!)These one-bowl meals check all the right boxes: They can be (mostly) prepped in advance (which makes getting dinner on the table mid-week a whole lot more manageable), they often leave enough leftovers for lunch, and they are a yummy way of ensuring I get plenty of vegetables and feel-good ingredients on the table. Here’s a week’s worth of easy one-bowl meals, packed with flavor and variety, plus a guide to how I plan it all out.

Monday nights in my house are all about ultra-comforting dinners, and right now we’re all about broth bowls. I plan to make extra mushrooms so I can add them to Friday’s dinner.

Get the recipe: Soba Noodle Broth Bowl with Miso-Butter Mushrooms

I’ll cook the rice, prep the veggies, and make the sauce during my weekend meal prep session, so all that’s left to do come dinnertime is cook the chicken — which happens fast since the recipe calls for ground chicken. Then I just reheat the rice and assemble the bowls. There’ll be enough leftovers for lunch the next day too!

Get the recipe: Spicy Thai Chicken and Brown Rice Bowls

I have a little bit of romaine, kale, mixed greens, and parsley hanging out in the crisper, so I plan to chop them up, mix them together, and use them as the base of this bowl in place of the quinoa — otherwise I could prep that ahead as well. I’ll cut up the veggies and blitz together the sauce (I’m making a double batch so I can use it again with Thursday’s dinner) while the chicken cooks, and dinner hits the table in under 30 minutes.

Get the recipe: Greek Chicken Grain Bowls

I’ll use the leftover feta sauce from last night’s dinner in place of the yogurt sauce in this recipe, and will also swap the poached eggs for a couple of pre-made hard-boiled eggs that I have in the fridge.

Get the recipe: Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea Bowls

This is one of my favorite dinners for cleaning out the crisper at the end of the week. I’ll roast all my leftover veggies and pile them onto some hummus along with the leftover miso mushrooms from Monday. Round out the bowl with some pita chips, and voilà!

Get the recipe: Smoky Roasted Vegetable Hummus Bowl

Meal planning isn’t always easy — especially if you’re just getting started. But we’re firm believers that it’s the secret to stress-free weeknight dinners. We want to help you find inspiration and ease some of the pain points that come with getting dinner on the table night after night, whether you’re cooking one or a family of four or five. Every week we share a new meal plan solution specifically customized for you from reader requests or from a guest contributor, for Next Week’s Meal Plan!

• The Beginner’s Guide to Meal Planning: What to Know, How to Succeed, and What to Skip
• The Best Way to Use a Weekend for Meal Planning Success
• Ask Yourself These 5 Questions Before You Start Meal Planning
• 5 Strategies for Picking Recipes for a Week of Meal Planning

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