I love the concept behind nourish bowls – i.e. bowls of great tasting food packed with healthy nutrients! Of course I love all bowl foods, so I might be predisposed to like these! If you think about it, most favorite foods are bowl foods from ice cream to burrito bowls – what’s not to love?
Recently I found this great sprouted blend, (at Costco) with wild rice, brown rice, and quinoa – from there I was off and running! I still had some blood oranges after my Citrus Spinach Salad, (because I chronically over-buy yummy produce) so the natural choice was to pair their candy-like flavors with the nuttiness of my new found sprouted blend. Next I added rosemary roasted sweet potatoes, (optional but delicious) and placed it all over a bed of spinach, topped with the creamiest lemon garlic dressing!
The rosemary roasted sweet potatoes are so good, I highly recommend making them all by themselves as a side dish sometime!
This creamy dressing is a real breakthrough because… get this… is doesn’t have any dairy in it! I threw some hemp seeds in my dressing one day on a whim, and it was pretty much the best discovery I’ve made in a while! They add super amounts of creaminess with a boost of plant based protein as well!
Whenever I’m leaving out dairy I tend to rely on a egg for a thick creamy dressing, but that presents a problem for a lot of people. Raw egg can be of concern especially if you don’t have access to farm fresh eggs. So… hemp seeds to the rescue – solving all your creamy dressing needs! Since this discovery I’ve been working on a dairy free, egg free Caesar dressing – which before now I didn’t think was even close to possible!
Tip: for pictures of how-to cut the peels from citrus, you can check out my Citrus Spinach Salad with Feta.
This recipe has a couple of different parts to it, but don’t feel like you have to make both the rice and sweet potatoes, because it’s really good with either one which also saves you some time! Both the dressing and the sweet potatoes are an entity unto themselves, and can be used in all sorts of different ways!
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Nourish Bowls with Creamy Lemon Garlic Dressing
- Total Time: 50 mins
- Yield: 4–6 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 2 sweet potatoes or yams, weighing 1 1/2 pounds
- 2 Teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 Teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup sprouted rice blend – cooked according to your package instructions
Salad ingredients:
- 4–6 blood oranges
- 4–6 cups washed baby spinach, weighing 4-6 ounces
Dressing:
- 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 Teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 Teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 Tablespoon hemp seeds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Wash and trim ends from the sweet potatoes. Cut them into eighths lengthwise (or quarters if your sweet potatoes are small). Next, cut them crosswise into 1/2 inch chunks. Toss the sweet potato pieces with the rosemary, olive oil, and sea salt. Roast them for 15-20 minutes, or until tender, turning them over twice during the baking time.
- After you place the sweet potatoes in the oven begin cooking the rice according to your package directions – times will vary depending on what your’e using. I used a sprouted blend that took 20 minutes to cook.
- While the rice and sweet potatoes cook, prepare the blood oranges by cutting off both ends and then slicing off the skins. Once all the peel is removed, slice them crosswise into 1/4 inch round slices.
- Make the dressing placing all the dressing ingredients in a blender and blending until smooth and creamy.
- To serve, divide the spinach between each bowl and top with a bit of rice, sweet potatoes, and blood orange slices. Drizzle with dressing or pass it separately around at the table.
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
I really like your idea of making the sweet potatoes with the rosemary roasted in the oven as a side dish. Yum! And as much as I like your dressing, I think the salad is so flavor packed, you could even go plain if you wanted it. Regardless, it’s chock full of both flavor and nutrition and I’ve noticed that citrus seems to be one of those hot trends right now!
I think you’re right, you probably could go w/o dressing, but I’m really a sauce/dressing kind of girl so I won’t be giving up that creamy dressing anytime soon!
I love the concept of Nourish Bowls as well, though it’s a term I can’t say I have used before!
I have to look for that sprouted quinoa + wild rice blend, sounds like something I would really enjoy.
I’m new to Nourish Bowls too, but I love putting all sorts of combos together! The best thing about this sprouted blend is that it cooks relatively fast compared to how long it would take if the wild rice wasn’t sprouted – makes it much easier for the average weeknight!