If you’re ever on the hunt for healthy, easy leftover chicken recipes, this chicken Buddha bowl needs to be on your list. It’s really quick and easy to make, packed with goodness and delicious too.
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For whatever reason, it has been a while since I have made a Buddha bowl. If you a regular here, you might remember that last year I became a bit of a reluctant convert.
I’ve never thought of myself as one to jump on trends, and in fairness I was very late to the party. But my crab rice Buddha bowl and particularly my leftover steak and quinoa bowl were both so tasty it was hard not to be convinced. In fact, if I have any leftover steak, that bowl (or a version of it) is always top of my list.
This time, however, I was looking for ways a quick and easy leftover chicken recipe to make something for lunch. My typical go-to is Vietnamese chicken salad, but I didn’t have any cabbage or mint so that was off the cards. Since chicken satay were on my mind, for some reason, it didn’t take much to come up with this tasty bowl.
What’s in a Buddha bowl?
In case you are unfamiliar, the basic components of a Buddha bowl are:
- protein, either meat or vegetarian
- some grains
- some greens
- a tasty sauce
- anything else you feel like, particularly other veggies.
As you can see, this chicken Buddha bowl has all of those, and it’s a delicious combination.
While I’ve described what’s in my bowl in the recipe below, this is by no means a hard and fast list. You can easily change up the components depending on what you have or prefer – it works just as well with leftover turkey, for example. However I recommend adding something with a bit of crunch, mix up the colors and, of course, don’t forget the sauce.
This Thai-style leftover chicken Buddha bowl is an easy, delicious and healthy combination that’s also the perfect way to use up leftovers and solve the lunch question. How could you not give it a try?!
Try these other tasty uses for leftover chicken:
- Pastilla (savory Moroccan pie)
- Aji de gallina (Peruvian chicken stew)
- Thai red curry
- Plus get more Holiday leftovers ideas, as well as many more lunch recipes in the archives.
Thai-style leftover chicken Buddha bowl
Ingredients
For the Buddha bowl
- 1 cooked chicken breast or other leftover cooked chicken eg a whole leg
- ⅓ red pepper
- 1 cup cooked rice – I used a wild rice blend but use as you have/prefer
- 1 handful arugula or other salad greens, as you prefer
- ¼ cup cooked edamame
For dressing
- 2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
- ½ tbsp coconut cream
- ½ tbsp lime juice
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp water
Instructions
- Slice or shred the cooked chicken. Cut the pepper into thin slices.
- Arrange the bowls by placing each of the chicken, pepper, rice, greens and edamame in a little pile next to each other, using half of each for each bowl.
- Blend together all of the dressing ingredients and add to the bowls, mixing in as you eat.
Notes
Nutrition
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I first shared the recipe for Thai style chicken Buddha bowl with coconut peanut sauce on the Sunday Supper site, where I am a contributor.
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