Hi Busies! Kale is having a major moment right now, and prepping a base of kale and brown rice is like putting on dark jeans and a white shirt – you can style it so many different ways depending on how you accessorize, or in this case, what toppings you use.  This kale bowl is topped off with sweet potato, chickpeas, and avocado for a nice variety of textures, and is topped with the most delicious peanut sauce!

Kale is a great ingredient to meal prep with, because you can sauté a big batch and freeze it in portions.  To be honest, dealing with a bunch of raw kale was pretty intimidating to me at first, because of just how big one bunch is before it cooks down.  Watson and Penny like to sit on the kitchen rug and watch as I scramble around washing, de-stemming, slicing, sautéing, and seasoning kale, rotating between sink, island, and stovetop.  This round, I cooked 3 bunches of kale at once and made 3 different types of kale bowls.  The key to helping the kale stand out in these dishes is to add lots of seasoning to the kale itself.  I like to sprinkle it generously with coarse sea salt and pepper right as I put it in the pan, and then add even more right before I take it off the heat.  It gets a bit hectic, but this phasing gets all 3 bunches cooked in around 20 minutes, and the pups know that if they behave, they’ll get a W-A-L-K after!  

Sweet potato falls into my “easy meal prep vegetables” category (also including broccoli, carrots, and butternut squash, to name a few), because you just pop it in the oven with some olive oil, salt, & pepper, and then you’re free to work on something else.  Plus, the leftover peanut sauce you’ll have after making this is just begging to be drizzled over my quick & easy beef stir fry.  Seriously, Busies – you must try this.  You know what they say… “why yes, that would be better with peanut butter on it!” … oh wait, they don’t say that, I say that.

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Peanut Kale Bowl

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Servings 4

Author Sam - Busy Girl Bites

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 2 sweet potatoes (diced)
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 cup chickpeas (canned or precooked)
• Avocado (optional, for garnish)

Peanut Sauce

• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 2 T soy sauce
• 2 T maple syrup
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tsp ginger (peeled and sliced)
• pinch of cayenne pepper or chili flakes

Instructions

1. Sweet Potato: Preheat oven to 400°F.  Peel and dice sweet potatoes, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and bake 30 minutes or until tender.
2. Kale: Rinse, dry, de-stem, and chop kale.  Saute until wilted over medium high heat in a large pan drizzled with olive oil.  Season liberally with salt and pepper.
3. Peanut Sauce: To make the peanut sauce, combine all ingredients in a blender and pulse until well combined.  Add water to thin as necessary - I usually add between 1/4 and 1/3 cup of water.
4. Assembly: Stir together rice, kale, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, and garnish with avocado.  Drizzle with peanut sauce.  Enjoy!

Recipe Notes

Before you start!  Check out my tips for how to meal prep like a pro here (link).

Adapted from Eating Bird Food