Recipe: Roasted Kale and Black Bean Burrito Bowls

For an easy, customizable dinner, consider the burrito bowl. When made using a couple of shortcut ingredients, a burrito bowl requires even less cooking than Taco Tuesdays, and you can make it as wholesome or decadent as you’d like.

The first step is to pick the base grain by taking advantage of the wide selection of ready-to-eat whole grain rice options at most conventional grocery stores. These packets of fully cooked rice only need 90 seconds in the microwave before being portioned into bowls. Generic brands of short-grain brown rice work great here; you can also experiment with multigrain if you’d like.

Second, you’ll want to spend some time perusing the canned bean aisle for the protein portion of the bowls. Here, I’ve used Bush’s Black Bean Fiesta, which includes chipotle and corn in the mix, but you can use just about any seasoned black bean you’d like. Make sure to read the ingredient list if you’re vegetarian, as some brands do include animal fat. Heat the beans on the stovetop while you microwave the rice, then add lime zest and juice to liven them up.

From there, you’ll want to bring in a bit of freshness and crunch from a vegetable, such as the roasted kale used in the recipe that follows. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes to turn the relatively tough green into a crisp, chip-like topping. Squeeze a little more lime juice over the top to finish.

Once the kale is roasted and your base ingredients are hot, all that’s left to assemble are toppings. Avocado — at least in my house — is nonnegotiable, so it makes the cut as a required topping. Dice up a large, ripe one and toss it with a little more lime zest, juice and salt. Everything else — salsa, cheese, herbs, sour cream — is up to you.