Name: Southwestern Quinoa Bowl with Chicken
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt ((or sour cream)); 2 tablespoons salsa; ½ cup cooked quinoa; ½ cup shredded cooked chicken breast; ¼ cup black beans, rinsed and drained; ¼ medium-sized avocado, diced or sliced; ¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped; 1 diced tomato ((or a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved))

Chicken and black beans make this southwestern quinoa bowl an incredibly filling and healthy lunch or dinner. It’s ideal if you do meal prepping!

Recipe Overview

Why you’ll love it: It’s easy to make your own restaurant-style meal bowl, and it’s more economical and healthier, too.

How long it takes: 5 minutes
Equipment you’ll need: none
Servings: 1 (or make as many as you like)

Overhead of southwestern quinoa bowl in square wooden bowl, with fork alongside.

Meal prep is something I always try to do, but I’m not the best at. I find that if I try to do just a couple things, I’m always more successful.

Enter this quinoa bowl. Prep the chicken and the quinoa ahead of time and you’re good to go for the week. The rest of it takes just minutes to prepare.

Ingredient Notes

Beans: I use canned black beans for this recipe, drained and rinsed. However, I love to cook up a batch of pinto beans in my Instant Pot and keep them in the fridge or freezer for easy to assemble bowls like this.
Chicken: I like this slow cooker shredded chicken recipe It’s one that I make SO often, especially if I find myself with a pack of chicken in the fridge that I thought I had plans for but life got in the way. Into the slow cooker it goes with salsa and taco seasoning and life is good again. You can also use this Instant Pot shredded chicken recipe for meal prepping. It’s faster than a slow cooker and just as good.
Salsa: I use my restaurant style salsa to make the sauce for this recipe, but you can also use store-bought salsa.
Quinoa: I typically cook quinoa in advance. I cook an entire bag at one time and then freeze the cooked quinoa in one cup portions. It makes it so much convenient to eat quinoa; why cook it more than once if you don’t have to? If you want, you can read more about freezing quinoa.
Sauce: The last thing I want to touch on is the sauce. It’s a simple combination of my restaurant style salsa (which I’m obsessed with) and Greek yogurt. Of course, you can use sour cream instead of yogurt. Drizzle this mixture on top, or mix it with the quinoa, especially if you’re thinking the quinoa seems a bit dry (I usually do both!)

Make it your own

As with most of my recipes, have fun with this southwestern quinoa bowl! Be creative because pretty much anything goes with this bowl. Here are some ideas:

Make it a fajita bowl: Add sautéed peppers and onions to your bowl, or diced roasted poblanos. Roasted sweet potatoes are pretty amazing, too. Add toppings you’d normally put on a taco. Mash the avocado up or use guacamole.
Make it vegetarian: Omit the chicken or replace the chicken with crispy air fryer tofu.
Use leftovers: Have leftover taco meat? Use that instead of chicken. You can add shredded lettuce too, and top it withCatalina dressing. It will be a healthier taco salad!
Make it extra saucy: If you want to make a little extra sauce, you won’t be mad that you did. If you want to get even further ahead with meal prep, you could mix this dressing up in advance as well and have it ready to go. It may separate a bit in the fridge, but just give it a stir and you’ll be good to go.
Level up: If you want to kick your bowl up a notch, try topping it with my easy pickled red onions. I love to top it with crispy tortilla strips, too!

Front shot of quinoa bowl on blue striped cloth.

Recipe