Chicken Meal Prep Bowl with Quinoa and Sweet Potato
40g protein. The Sunday prep blueprint.
Grilled chicken breast over tri-color quinoa with roasted sweet potato, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and a lemon-tahini drizzle. The ultimate batch cooking template.
This is the bowl I recommend to every single client who asks me where to start with meal prep. It is not flashy. It is not going to win any culinary awards. But it works. Every component can be batch cooked, it reheats without getting weird on day four, and it covers all your macros without needing a calculator.
The formula is simple: protein plus grain plus roasted vegetable plus raw vegetable plus sauce. Grilled chicken for protein, tri-color quinoa for the grain, sweet potato and broccoli get roasted, cherry tomatoes and cucumber stay raw for crunch. The lemon-tahini drizzle brings it all together and keeps the bowls from drying out over the week.
I have been making variations of this bowl every Sunday for three years. Sometimes I swap the chicken for salmon or turkey. Sometimes I switch the sweet potato for regular potatoes. The framework stays the same. If you can cook five of these on a Sunday afternoon, you have already won the week before it starts.
Chicken Meal Prep Bowl with Quinoa and Sweet Potato
Ingredients
- FOR THE CHICKEN
- FOR THE QUINOA
- FOR THE ROASTED VEGETABLES
- FOR THE FRESH VEGETABLES
- FOR THE LEMON-TAHINI DRIZZLE
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F. Toss sweet potato cubes with 1 tablespoon olive oil, garlic powder, and salt. Spread on a sheet pan and roast 15 minutes. Add broccoli tossed with remaining olive oil and roast another 10 minutes until tender.
- Cook quinoa: rinse quinoa, bring to a boil with water and salt, reduce to low, cover, cook 15 minutes. Remove from heat, squeeze lemon wedge over top, let stand 5 minutes, then fluff.
- Season chicken breasts with olive oil, garlic powder, smoked paprika, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Grill or pan-sear 6-7 minutes per side until internal temp reaches 165F. Rest 5 minutes, then slice.
- Make the drizzle: whisk tahini, lemon juice, warm water, garlic, and salt until smooth. Add more water if too thick.
- Assemble 5 containers: divide quinoa evenly, add roasted sweet potato and broccoli, top with sliced chicken, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber.
- Drizzle lemon-tahini sauce over each bowl. Store in the fridge up to 5 days. Reheat chicken, quinoa, and roasted vegetables. Keep tomatoes and cucumber on the side if prepping more than 3 days ahead.