These vegan curried chickpea bowls make meal prepping for the week a breeze. The chickpeas are paired with garlicky spinach and brown rice for an easy meal that’s absolutely delicious and filling.
Hooray, it’s Friday!! I’m not trying to rush the weekend away, but today I want to talk about meal prep. I’ve been doing it every Sunday for the past few months and it’s been a total game-changer. I use this meal planning printable to plan our meals for the week ahead, go to the grocery store and do a little meal prep. These few hours over the weekend make make it incredibly easy to whip up health meals throughout the week. I know many of you like to meal prep as well so I’ve teamed up with a few of my blogging girlfriends again this month to bring you six healthy and delicious meal prep recipes to add to your weekly rotation. Ready to see them all?
- Taylor’s Greek Chicken Bowls — These low carb Greek chicken bowls have roasted cauliflower and an olive tapenade. They’re an easy, whole30 compliant, paleo meal that you can prep ahead, and they’re only 300 calories!
- Lindsay’s Honey BBQ Baked Salmon Bowls — These Honey BBQ Baked Salmon Bowls are the perfect meal prep recipe for a make ahead lunch or quick dinner. Protein Packed, Gluten Free, and Dairy Free. A healthy meal ready in 30 minutes!
- Lexi’s Thai Basil Turkey Bowls — These 30-Minute Thai Basil Turkey Bowls are a perfect meal prep recipe that comes together in no time! They are flavorful, delicious Whole30 approved, and packed with veggies to fuel you for your busy days ahead!
- Gina’s Shredded Mexican Beef Bowls — These shredded Mexican beef bowls are made in the slow cooker and perfect for weekly meal prep with rice, beans, plantains and peppers to round them out!
- Lee’s Meal Prep Vegetarian Kung Pao Quinoa Bowl — These Vegetarian Kung Pao Quinoa Bowls are the perfect meal prep recipe to make so you can enjoy a healthy lunch or dinner the entire week!
Last up we have my curried chickpea bowls with garlicky spinach.
These bowls are super efficient because you use the same pan to cook the spinach and the chickpeas, both of which can happen while your brown rice is cooking.
Plus, the flavor is on point!!
The chickpeas are cooked with onions and garlic and tossed in fragrant tomato based curry sauce that pairs wonderfully with the zesty lemon garlic spinach. Serving both of these over a generous portion of brown rice makes for a hearty and filling vegan gluten-free meal prep bowl that you can bring for lunch or have on hand for a quick dinner.
The recipe makes three servings so if you want a week’s worth of meals you’ll want to double it! You can easily reheat the curried chickpea bowls before serving or eat them cold. There’s no wrong way to eat meal prep bowls! 🙂
Curried Chickpea Bowls with Garlicky Spinach
Ingredients
Garlicky Spinach
- 1 teaspoon avocado oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 5 oz baby spinach
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 lemon juiced
Curried Chickpeas
- 2 teaspoons avocado oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 15 oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 2 teaspoons curry
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
- 3 Tablespoons water
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- fresh cilantro, chopped (for topping)
- green onion, chopped (for topping)
- 3 cups cooked brown or white rice
Instructions
- Cook rice, if it’s not cooked already.
- Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant (about 1-2 minutes). Add baby spinach to the skillet and sauté for 2-3 minutes or until spinach has started to wilt. Toss in sea salt and lemon juice. Toss to coat, remove from heat and place spinach on a small plate.
- In the small skillet you used to cook the spinach, add another 2 teaspoons oil over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and cook (stirring frequently) until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add spices (curry powder, cumin, cinnamon), chickpeas and tomato paste into the skillet. Toss to combine and quickly add water as the pan will start to dry out. Add sea salt and pepper, toss everything together and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and prepare bowls — each one with brown rice, chickpeas and spinach. Top with cilantro and green onion.
- For meal prep, allow all ingredients to cool and then grab 3 glass storage containers. Fill each with 1 cup rice, ⅓ of curried chickpeas and ⅓ of baby spinach. Top with cilantro and green onion. Place in fridge until ready to eat.
These look amazing !!!
Thank you so much, Karlie. I hope you get a chance to try them.
Do you rinse and drain the chickpeas?
Yes! I’ll add that to the instructions. 🙂
You win for easiest meal prep bowl of the bunch! I love how simple yet delicious these veg bowls are! Chickpeas are an awesome veg protein and love the spice on these!
Chickpea and curry is my fav combo! This recipe is definitely happening this week!
I have a total obsession with curried chickpeas! crunchy flavorful and protein packed. gonna make these bowls for days! Or I will try! haha
Excited to give this a try this weekend, looks delicious! If I use olive oil instead of avocado oil, will there be a big taste difference? Is there a benefit to use avo oil? Thanks!
Hi Becca. You can definitely use olive oil here. I like using avocado oil for high heat cooking, like roasting veggies, because it has a higher smoke point, but olive oil will definitely work for this recipe!
I love garlicky anything and everything! What an awesome lunch these would be!
This looks SO amazing. Adding it to my menu!
Great meal prep idea! Love the one-pan tip for the chickpeas and spinach because the fewer dishes the better, right?
Lovely photos! Looking forward to making this. Any suggestions as to a substitution for the curry?
Hi Kristy. Do you not like curry? If that’s the case, maybe try subbing 2 teaspoons of chili powder for the curry and make it more of a Mexican style dish!
This looks wonderful, great flavors and colors. I am a huge curry fan, thanks!
Hi Brittany,
I love chickpeas and this dish looks delicious & can’t wait to try it! Quick question about the meal prep – will the dish be ok in the fridge for 6 days or should I freeze half? Also do the containers have to glass?
Thank you 😊
I think 3-4 days is ideal, but I don’t think the bowls would be bad on day 6. And nope, plastic containers will work fine. Just don’t put your plastic containers in the microwave. 🙂
Which glass containers do you use? I like this size.
I bought this package of glass containers from Target (http://bit.ly/2lyYAz8). The rectangular ones are 14oz.
I absolutely LOVED this recipe! I added a little bit of fresh ginger…delicious!
Hooray!!! So glad you liked this recipe, Britney. Also, love your name. 🙂
Thanks so much for this recipe, it was absolutely delicious! And tasted even better the next day too! 🙂
Hi! Can you do this dish in a croc pot with dry garbanzo? or should I first cook the garbanzo in the croc pot and then prep this meal?
Thanks..
Hi Cori! I would cook the beans in your crockpot first and then use them to prep the meal. Hope you love it!
What kind of curry did you use? The red paste curry or the yellow powdered curry?
Can’t wait to try this recipe 🙂
I used the yellow curry powder. Enjoy the recipe!! 🙂
Hi there. I was wondering if the calorie and carb info was accurate? It seems high. Thanks!
Is that calorie content for the entire recipe? It seems high for one bowl.
I was just thinking the same thing!
Yes, something wonky was going on with the nutrition facts. Just updated them! Sorry about that.
Thanks for noticing this, Michelle. The nutrition facts were wonky for this recipe. Just updated them. 🙂
Just made a double recipe! Taste awesome!
Woo-hoo! So glad you like it, Angela.
Do you think these are ok to freeze
I used olive oil instead. I’m not a big fan of cooked spinach so I wasn’t sure about this recipe, but it was delicious aside from me accidentally putting a little more cinnamon in than I had intended. I would also definitely cut down on the rice a bit. Even for just one serving, a cup of rice is a ton! I also included garlic naan I bought from the store (I love garlic anything!) to dip in the bowl. I will definitely be making this recipe again!
I just made this and I know it will be a regular in my meal plan rotation! I needed to make this stretch recipe for 2 dinners and 2 leftover lunches so I added a can of loosely drained diced tomatoes and it was a great addition to create more food with no work.
Yay! So glad you tired and liked this recipe, Jess! And I love your tip about adding a can of diced tomatoes to stretch the recipe.