Y’all know I’m all about the bowl meals, right? It’s pretty routine for me to just go into my fridge, grab whatever odds and ends I have, and throw them into a bowl for a meal. They usually have some sort of base (a grain or salad greens), a protein, some vegetables, and some sort of cheese or dressing on top. The rice-hummus combo is one of my favorite bowl meal bases, so I wanted to highlight that here and show just how flexible it is. So, that being said, these Mediterranean Hummus Bowls are less of a “recipe” and more of a template for easy meals. I’m going to offer plenty of ideas for swaps and substitutions below, but I encourage you to get creative and discover your own new flavor combinations based on what you have in your fridge!
This post contains some affiliate links, which means that we make a small commission off items you purchase at no additional cost to you.
Ideas for Swaps and Substitutions
Proteins:
- Garlic Marinated Chicken (thighs or breast)
- Soft Boiled Eggs (see a photo of my “breakfast” hummus bowl in that post)
- Beef Kofta Meatballs
- Ground turkey or chicken instead of ground beef prepared in the same way as the beef in the recipe below.
- Go all veg! The hummus provides a good amount of protein, so you can keep it simple and just do the rice, hummus, and vegetables.
Vegetables:
- Any mix of roasted vegetables
- Quartered artichoke hearts
- Sun dried tomatoes
- Roasted or grilled eggplant
- Sautéed or grilled zucchini or yellow squash
- Roasted cauliflower
- Roasted red peppers (from a jar)
- Bell peppers
- Shredded beets or carrots
Bowl Bases:
- Any other grain, like bulgur, farro, brown rice, quinoa, etc.
- Salad greens
- Or you can even make this into a naan pizza. Spread the hummus over the naan like a sauce and add the rest of the ingredients on top.
Mediterranean Hummus Bowls
Servings 4Ingredients
Seasoned Ground Beef
- 1/2 lb. ground beef ($2.65)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp cumin ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder ($0.02)
- 1/4 tsp salt ($0.02)
Bowl Ingredients (all ingredients optional)
- 4 cups cooked rice ($0.70)
- 1 cup hummus* ($1.48)
- 1 pint grape tomatoes ($1.89)
- 1/2 English cucumber ($0.75)
- 1/4 red onion ($0.07)
- 1 cup kalamata olives ($0.90)
- 2 oz. crumbled feta ($1.10)
- handful fresh parsley, chopped ($0.25)
Instructions
- Add the ground beef to a skillet, along with the oregano, cumin, garlic powder, and salt. Cook and stir the beef over medium heat until fully browned and evenly combined with the spices.
- To build the bowls, add 1 cup rice and 1/4 cup hummus to each bowl. Divide the remaining ingredients among the four bowls, or in any amount that you desire. Enjoy immediately or refrigerate until ready to eat.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!
How to Make Mediterranean Hummus Bowls – Step by Step Photos
Add 1/2 lb. ground beef to a skillet along with 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Cook and stir the beef over medium heat until it is fully browned and combined with the spices.
While the beef is cooking, prepare the rest of your toppings. I used grape tomatoes, English cucumber, some leftover red onion that I had, leftover kalamata olives, a handful of parsley, and some leftover feta cheese. Here’s a tip for red onions: let them soak for about 5 minutes in ice water and that will take the super spicy edge off and make them a little easier on the stomach. :)
Then it’s time to build your Mediterranean Hummus Bowls! Start with about one cup of rice per bowl, add 1/4 cup hummus, then just go ahead and divide the rest of your ingredients among the four bowls. You can serve them right away, or pack them away in meal prep containers for later. They’ll keep in the fridge for about four days.
Are you already a hummus bowl eater? What are your favorite topping combos? I’d love to hear more ideas! Leave your favorite ingredients for me in the comments below.
Used extra lean ground sirloin and it was phenomenal. Definitely going to make it into my monthly/weekly rotation. Would also make a great lunch option for meal prep.
Love new recipes !
I made this for dinner tonight, and it was delicious. I used ground turkey instead of ground beef, and it turned out great! I will definitely be making this recipe again.
Made this last night and it was great! Today I put the leftovers in a tortilla wrap and it was SO good! I actually prefer eating it this way and will in the future when we make it again. Thanks for the great recipe.
This was great! I used Beyond Burger to make it vegetarian and we liked it a lot!
great bowl! as i don’t like raw onion, i pickled my red onion with red wine vinegar and it was a great flavor edition to the ingredients.
I had a some of your Black bean & Cucumber salad and it was the perfect addition to these bowls.
I am looking forward to making this! What percent of ground beef is recommended? Thank you!
Southwestern
Chicken with cilantro lime
Roasted red pepper hummus
Cilantro lime rice
Cabbage
Roasted corn
Black beans
Tortilla strips
Avocado cilantro yogurt dressing
Super excited to try this Mediterranean Hummus Bowls , seems amazing and unique. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Thanks for sharing valuable article please keep posting
Thanks for sharing your awesome knowledge. I really appreciate your thoughts on this topic and I will return to your website. Thank you for your kindliness!
Wowowow super great meal prep. I love how flexible it’s is and I know this is going to be in my rotation of meals. Thank you. As someone trying to better my health, this is great
Love this! Have made it several times, adding different roasted vegetables each time.
Very very delicious that, everyone should try this.
I am very thankful to you for providing such a great information. It is simple but very accurate information.
Delicious! And very filling. I added just a touch of balsamic vinaigrette and it really tied everything together. I also got a side of pita bread which paired well the dish.
Wowowow super great meal prep. I live how flexible it’s is and I know this is going to be in my rotation of meals. Thank you. As someone trying to better my health this is great
Delicious! And very filling. I added just a touch of balsamic vinaigrette and it really tied everything together. I also got a side of pita bread which paired well the dish.
Very very delicious that, everyone should try this.
Delicious spring meal. It felt like spring today, so we wanted something lighter. We all thought it was delicious. Added a bell pepper. Daughter didn’t buy feta. I would have liked it. Haha. (Eastern WI]
Truly one of the best budgetbytes recipes I’ve made. Simple, super healthy, keeps really well in the fridge. It’s the perfect weekday lunch. Throw some balsamic vinegar on it and you’ve got a hit. I will be making this for the rest of my life.
Hello, I would like to make this, but is there anything I could replace beef with?:)
You could swap with ground turkey or chicken.
Thank you!
I love making recipes like this for flavor packed lunch bowls. Instead of rice I made some orzo and tossed it with balsamic dressing and Italian parsley. Some other toppings that are great additions are marinated artichokes and roasted peppers! We also love Mama Lil’s peppers for a little kick, but these added toppings do bring up the price.
Thank you to a great recipe!
I’ve made this a few times for my family and it is so good and so easy to make. The first time I made this I was going to use the meatballs from Beth’s kofta meatball recipe but ended up frying up the ground beef and now I use that spice mix each time.
My husband and I just made this for the first time tonight (I am currently eating seconds as I write this haha). It’s AMAZING! I love Mediterranean flavors, and I love how quick and easy this was to throw together (minus making homemade hummus, but that’s still no big deal). Definitely adding this to our regular rotation!
My picky daughter lights up when I tell her we’re having this for dinner! We experiment with a lot of different toppings and it’s always delicious. Sometimes we stretch it and add extra protein by stirring in some Greek yogurt. YUM! Thank you!
Love this! Have made it several times, adding different roasted vegetables each time. I love to add pickled red onions instead of raw. So delicious!
Oh many those pickled red onions are a game changer!
Delicious!
Nice recipe, delicious and tasty to eat!
This was soooo good!! I can’t wait to try some other varieties!
AHHHMAZING! Sautéed the onions for a couple minutes because raw onions aren’t my fav but other than that I followed the recipe. I absolutely LOVE your recipes because I KNOW it’s going to be good! Thank you!
Great tip!
Beth does it again! This was absolutely magnificent. I have to add this to my rotation of quick, easy, delicious and nutritious budgetbytes meals!
Our local Arabic restaurant serves something similar for lunch. They start with a handful over greens then a scoop hummus, tahini, tabouli, 2 falafel and a scoop of a rice/lentil mix. It is so yummy so so with a bit of Arabic hot pepper sauce.
This looks so beautiful and I love the flavors going on. Thanks for sharing!
Great recipe! Inexpensive, easy, and delicious. The ground beef is really flavorful and veggies give the dish a nice freshness while the hummus is the dressing that brings it all together. Thanks again Beth!
I absolutely loved this dish! Not only because it was super easy but because my two boys (2 and 3 years old) ate it right up! They could not get enough of the hummus! This dish was satisfying yet was so fresh and didn’t leave us feeling sluggish after! Highly recommend this dish, even if you have Little’s at home! I made ours with quinoa and it was delicious!
I. Am. Obsessed. Thank you for this “template” Beth. The options are endless for this one. Try adding sun dried tomatoes, roasted chickpeas, or simply put everything on a bed of mixed greens. So good!
There is an issue when I print out your recipes…..I change the serving amount to 8 and it doubles everything correctly, however, when I print, the page comes out saying “servings: 8”, but the recipe reverts back to the original…….so not the correct quantities for 8 servings……..
Thanks for letting me know! I’ll contact tech support for the recipe plugin to find out what’s up.
Can I ask what operating system and browser you’re using? I’m having trouble recreating the problem. It seems to be working fine on my end.
I made this last night and my family loved it. I also used ground lamb and lots of short cuts from Trader Joes (frozen brown rice, hummus, cucumber yogurt dip and garlic nan). I highly recommend adding a yogurt sauce to this meal as it goes well with all the flavors. My husband liked it so much he thought I should make it for company! Great recipe and easy meal!
I made this with quinoa omitting and it turned out great, leaving me with leftovers for a couple work lunches.
I have to ask however, if you’re preparing these in advanced, just how safe is it to be eating cold ground beef and rice?
I certainly wouldn’t want to be reheating the veggies with the rice and beef.
As long as it is refrigerated quickly after cooking the fact that it is cold is not an issue. It only unsafe if it is left in the “temperature danger zone” (between 40-140ºF) for more than two hours. So if you refrigerate it quickly and get it down below 40ºF, it’s fine.
I love these customizable bowl meals! I left out the meat and olives and used vegan feta, came out great! And it was so easy to throw together for an easy dinner after work. Thanks for the tip about red onion it really made a big difference.
The recipes you share are no less than bliss.
This was amazing BUT…we used veggie crumbles instead of beef to keep with the vegetarian challenge. Soooo good!
This was delicious! Impressed at how easy it all came together, we’ll definitely be adding it into the rotation. I did add green peppers and then regretted it bc they’re a little too hard when raw in this dish, but the tomatoes and cucumbers were great.
Whoops, forgot to rate <3
Did this with ground lamb because it was on sale, had to leave out olives (I’m not a fan) and the red onion (the family isn’t a fan) but it turned out fantastic. Thanks for the recipe :)
Your tip about soaking the red onion is spot on. :)
Delicious! Made using rotisserie chicken in place of the ground beef. This was quick and easy to throw together and I’m looking forward to having it for lunch all week.
I’ve been doing this but instead of rice, throw it all in a taco!! SO good!
I love that you are highlighting this! Hummus with ~stuff~ is one of my favorite quick & healthy meals when we’ve made a batch of hummus. We do hummus with any combination of sliced/julienned radishes, vinegar-y pickles, green onions, parsley, tomatoes, olives, chickpeas (try warming them up and seasoning with some olive oil, cumin and a splash of lemon juice…mmm!). Crumbled feta is also nice if we have some.
(Speaking of feta—my dad used to make us a rolled pita sandwich of feta cheese and green apple slices with a healthy drizzle of olive oil. So tasty for breakfast with black tea!)