Plant-based protein bowls are a food trend that makes me very happy. They’re easy to make, nutritious, versatile, and filled with big flavors and lots of crunch. This Teriyaki Tofu and Veggie Protein Bowl is no exception.

{Picky Eater Advice}

If your family tends to shy away from vegetables, set up a build-your-own  bowl bar filled with an array of ingredients so everyone can decide what to take … or what not to take. Giving finicky eaters control over their individual food choices (especially when they’re all healthy choices) is often a big motivator for trying new foods.

The bowls I like to make include some sort of whole grain including brown rice, farro, quinoa, or whole wheat pasta, crunchy vegetables, fresh herbs, and one or two protein-rich foods — beans, tofu, grilled chicken, salmon, nuts, seeds, or eggs.
For this bowl, I combined whole grain brown rice with teriyaki sauce, pumpkin seeds, and chopped cilantro. Then I added ready-to-eat teriyaki tofu, a hard boiled egg, cooked edamame, diced bell pepper, and sugar snap peas. If I had a ripe avocado on my kitchen counter, I would have added it as well.

I created this recipe for The Recipe Redux. The theme this month was Plant Protein Power Bowls. {Packed with protein, fiber and color, plant power bowls are trendy and delicious. Show us the healthy recipe that’s in your bowl.} Read on for the recipe.

In the meantime, I just wanted to tell you where the inspiration came from for my Redux creation …

Last weekend, I attended the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE) in Boston with thousands of other registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs). Before the official conference kickoff,  I ran a pre-FNCE workshop on Recipe Writing 101 and smartphone food photography with Katie Morford from Mom’s Kitchen Handbook and Janet Helm from Nutrition Unplugged. For one of our hands-on activities, we gave each group a list of four must-use ingredients and a few photography props, and then we challenged them to create an original recipe. They also had extra ingredients to choose from — things like fresh herbs, nuts, seeds, and sauces.

This group (pictured above) was assigned brown rice, cooked edamame, sugar snap peas, and ready-to-eat teriyaki tofu. I loved their creation and photography setup … so for The Recipe Redux, I decided to challenge myself to come up with a plant-based bowl meal based on those same four ingredients.

Here I am showing attendees how to edit photos using an app called Snapseed. This group’s four must-use ingredients were naan bread, English cucumber, fresh mint, and hummus.

I love this photo of Heidi McIndoo from Apple a Day Nutrition and Jessica Levinson from Nutritioulicious taking photos of the bowl meal they created with whole wheat rotini, canned tuna, green olives, and cherry tomatoes. As you can see, bowl meals are indeed VERY popular.

And speaking of bowl meals, two of the groups challenged with creating a recipe using orange juice, banana, frozen wild blueberries, and baby spinach created smoothie bowls. These dynamic dietitians used fresh raspberries on top and arranged them in a heart shape 🙂

**********

So back to my recipe. I started with brown rice, sugar snap peas, tofu, and edamame. To that, I added teriyaki sauce, bell pepper, cilantro, pumpkin seeds, and a hard boiled egg.

Healthy Teriyaki Tofu & Veggie Protein Bowl

 

Author: Liz

Recipe type: Lunch or Dinner

Save Print

Bowl meals lend themselves to all sorts of fun ingredients and nutrient-rich combinations.They serve up an easy way to get more whole grains into your family's diet as well as protein (here I used a hard boiled egg and tofu) and lots of crunchy vegetables. This recipe is vegetarian, but you could certainly add grilled chicken, salmon, or lean beef. You could easily double, triple, or quadruple this recipe.

Ingredients

• ¾ cup cooked brown rice
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for sprinkling on top
• 1 tablespoon roasted pumpkin seeds
• 2 teaspoons low-sodium teriyaki sauce, divided
• 1 hard boiled egg, shelled
• 2 ounces ready-to-eat teriyaki marinated tofu
• ½ cup trimmed sugar snap peas
• ⅓ cup cooked shelled edamame
• ¼ small orange bell pepper, cut into ¼-inch dice

Instructions

1. Stir together the rice, cilantro, pumpkin seeds, and 1 teaspoon of the teriyaki sauce in the bowl you plan to eat from. Arrange the tofu, egg, sugar snap peas, edamame, and bell pepper on top.
2. Drizzle with the remaining teriyaki sauce and extra cilantro. {If you're not a lover of cilantro, leave it out.}

3.5.3226