This post is a little different than my usual. Instead of a “recipe” this is more like an experiment. It’s no secret that I love salad bars, I even wrote a post about How to Hit the Salad Bar Like a Boss. Every now and then, when I’m having an extreme craving for fresh vegetables, I’ll go to Whole Foods and build myself a monster salad with the mindset that it must be less expensive to go get a little of each of the 10 ingredients than to buy the full size of each item and make my “Purple Power Bowls” at home.
But is it?
So Monday morning I went out and bought all the things that I usually like to put in my monster-sized Purple Power Bowls and prepped all the ingredients so that I could eat them at home. Every day. EVERY DAY. Because it’s not really any cheaper if you buy all the ingredients, eat one bowl the first day, then let the rest of ingredients go bad. So I’m hoping that seeing all those prepped vegetables in my fridge (and posting it about here) will peer pressure me into eating a Purple Power Bowl every day. LOL. I’ll report back on my success.
I made some of my favorite tahini lemon dressing for this salad because it uses staples that I keep in my pantry and I didn’t have to buy anything extra, but you could totally use just about any dressing. I prefer creamy dressings for this salad because I find that the creamy/fatty flavor helps balance the super fibrous texture of all the vegetables and makes it a lot easier on my stomach. This lemon tahini dressing, though, is fab. It’s kind of like hummus minus the chickpeas!
Anyway, ready to see what’s in this super-duper Purple Power Bowl??
Since there’s no real set amount of each ingredient for the bowls, the amounts listed below are enough for at least 5 bowls, plus some extras. My salad bar version of the Purple Power Bowl cost about $8.50 per bowl. Buying all the ingredients for the bowls at home I spent around $13.85 and there is enough for at least 5 bowls… or $2.77 each. Again, that depends on if I eat all five. If I end up eating only four, that’s about $3.46 each, or still less than half the cost of the salad bar version.
Purple Power Bowls
Servings 5 bowlsIngredients
LEMON TAHINI DRESSING (optional)
- 1/3 cup tahini ($1.13)
- 1/3 cup water ($0.00)
- 1/4 cup lemon juice ($0.18)
- 1 clove garlic, crushed* ($0.08)
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper ($0.03)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
SALAD
- 2.5 cups cooked rice or other grain ($0.87)
- 1 15oz. can chickpeas ($0.79)
- 4 oz. baby greens ( $1.99)
- 2-3 small beets (2/3 lb.) ($1.72)
- 2 zucchini (1 lb.) ($1.63)
- 3 carrots (3/4 lb.) ($0.79)
- 1 small red cabbage (2 lb.) ($1.41)
- 1 avocado ($1.25)
- 1/2 bunch green onion ($0.35)
- 1/2 cup pepitas ($1.56)
Instructions
- Prepare the dressing by placing all the ingredients in a blender and puréeing until smooth. If you don’t have a blender, mince the garlic, then whisk the ingredients together in a bowl. Refrigerate the dressing until ready to use.
- Cool the cooked rice, if needed. Drain the can of chickpeas. Wash the beets, zucchini, and carrots well. Use a food processor or large-holed cheese grater to shred the beets, zucchini, and carrots. Remove any wilted leaves from the cabbage, then cut into quarters, and remove the core. Shred the cabbage using a food processor, or slice thinly with a knife. Slice the avocado and green onion.
- To build the bowls, place about 1/2 cup of the cooked rice in a bowl along with about 1/4 cup of chickpeas. Add a handful of baby greens, shredded beets, zucchini, carrots, and cabbage. Top with a few slices of avocado and a sprinkle of pepitas and sliced onion. Finally, drizzle the lemon tahini dressing liberally over the bowl, then eat.
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make a Purple Power Bowl – Step by Step Photos
Make the dressing first so that it has time to blend as you prepare the rest of the ingredients. To make the dressing, simply purée 1/3 cup tahini, 1/3 cup water, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1 clove of crushed garlic, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp cayenne, and 1/2 tsp salt in a blender. I use my cheap-but-powerful little Hamilton Beach personal blender. If you don’t have a small blender, just mince the garlic and whisk the ingredients together in a bowl. Refrigerate the dressing until you’re ready to use it.
I bought a wild rice blend for my bowls (it looks kind of purple once cooked), but you can use any grain that you like. I use approximately 1/2 cup of grains per bowl, so you’ll want at least 2.5 cups cooked.
Make sure your grain is cooled before making the bowls. If you need to cool it quickly, spread it out onto a lined baking sheet and refrigerate until cool. Spreading it out helps it cool super fast.
Now it’s time to shred the vegetables. I love having shredded vegetables for the salad because you get a little bit of everything in every bite, and it’s just easier to chew. Wash the vegetables well. You can peel them if you prefer, but I left the peel on and simply cut off the ends. For the bowls I used one small head of purple cabbage, three small beets (those were about the size of plums), two zucchini, and three carrots.
I used my food processor to quickly shred the vegetables, but you could also use a mandoline or large-holed cheese grater and a little elbow grease. Take note: if you shred them manually, the prep time will unfortunately be a lot longer. ;) I had about 2 cups shredded of each vegetable, except the cabbage, which I had about 6 cups of. I’ll definitely be using about half of that to make a separate recipe.
And the last three ingredients I used for the Purple Power Bowls were pepitas (1/2 cup), one avocado, and about 1/2 bunch of green onion. Slice the avocado and green onion. Not pictured: one 15oz. can of chickpeas (drain the beans) and one 4oz. bag of baby greens.
Finally, start building your bowls… I use about 1/2 cup of cooked rice or grains and 1/4 cup chickpeas.
Top the rice and chickpeas with a small handful of baby greens, shredded carrot, beets, cabbage, and zucchini.
Add a few slices of avocado and a sprinkle of pepitas and sliced green onion.
Lastly, give the bowl a generous drizzle of the Lemon Tahini Dressing. Mmmmmm.
And there you have the most beautiful, delicious, and texture filled meal you’ll ever make.
Now DIG IN to all that deliciousness! …And watch as the whole bowl begins to turn a bright and beautiful shade of purple-magenta.
Did you notice if one of the shredded veggies got soft & slimy a lot faster than the others?
My zucchini did. I think that’s because it’s the softest and highest water content of all of them.
I hope it’s not too much trouble, but I would love you to answer to this comment or make a post about freezing and de-freezing cheese, because I seem to recall that you freeze it (don’t know where have I read it, tho).. I live by myself and I honestly cannot buy a portion of cheese, even if it’s small, and consume it before it goes bad. If I want to have different kinds of cheese at home it’s a nightmare. I can’t find many info in google either; do some kinds of cheese defreeze better? Does it change texture? Do they go watery and disgusting? If im going to melt it do i need to defrost it first?
Thank you so much in advance
I find that most cheese freezes very well. Just make sure to wrap it tightly in plastic, and then probably in a freezer bag on top of that. I’ve frozen block cheese and shredded cheese (I didn’t even repackage the shredded, just popped the original bag in the freezer). Block cheese sometimes gets a little moist on the exterior upon thawing, but not bad. I haven’t had any issues with shredded cheese. I’ve heard that block cheese can become more crumbly after freezing, so it’s probably not best for slicing, but it’s fine other than that. I do recommend thawing before using the cheese.
Beth answered most of this question, but you can always stop at the deli section of your supermarket and order very small amounts. My supermarket has a specialty cheese counter, and I’ve frequently asked them to repackage a product–ie 2-4 oz of Brie or Bleu instead of the 6- 8 oz package. They won’t do this back in the hanging package section, only the service departments. But still, you can pick up an 8 oz package of grated or block cheese and use snack sized bags to repackage it in 2 oz servings, using one and freezing the rest. I often purchase cheese on sale and freeze what I don’t plan to use in a week or 2.
In case any one else is wondering, here’s the nutritional information on a single serving, with the dressing (from MFP): 616 cal/92g carb/20g fat/28g protein/20g sugar/22g fibre. This is a hunger banishing monster of a salad!
Bear in mind, these values are just a ballpark for curious minds. I left the avocado and green onion out of mine, and used wild rice for the grain, so yours might be a little different. These values also assume you get five servings out of the dressing, which may or may not be true, depending how much you like to douse your salad!
That sounds like a lot to me. Half a cup of cooked white rice has a little over 100 calories. My canned chickpeas have 130 calories per serving, but there’s not 5 servings in a can, so each serving in the salad would be around 70 calories. The raw veggies are low calorie. For the dressing, the only thing that has high calories is the tahini at 477 calories for 1/3 cup. Divide that by 5 and that’s less than 100 calories. Between the rice, chickpeas and sauce, it’s only around 275 calories. Again, the raw veggies are low calorie. It would take a TON to add up to 600 calories.
Half a cup of cooked wild rice is about 143 -190 calories, depending on how much it expands when cooked. So even with wild rice I’m not sure there would be 600 calories in one serving, especially without the avocado.
I thought this salad sounded yummy, but no way would I get 5 servings out of the recipe. I was curious and actually estimated the calories as wel, and ended up with more like 400 cal using brown rice. Which is a pretty low calorie lunch! I’ve made several of her recipes and enjoyed them, but every time I’ve noticed that Beth seems to eat a lot less than I do. I guess everyone’s energy needs are a bit different– I think I would add an egg and more avocado — and probably more rice — to each serving.
For the avocado, put lemon or lime juice on the exposed flesh and then wrap tightly with plastic wrap to keep it from browning. They don’t last long enough at my house to need this though. :)
The rice, chickpeas, beets, carrots, and cabbage can be frozen or cooked into a soup. Now I’m hungry for a cold borscht.
I like to dehydrate the zucchini and green onions (well, any onion) at my house since they don’t freeze well. I also dehydrate a lot of other veggies too to save them when needed. Lurve my food dehydrator!
The baby greens? Alas, I still haven’t figured out what to do with them when they start to wilt…except to glare at them in resignation…not that they care. ~sigh and sadness~
This looks delicious! I’ll probably cook my beets first since I find their dirt-like taste goes away once they’ve been cooked through and softened.
I have an inspiralizer so I can actually make this salad with veggie noodles rather than shreds!
Thank you!
The Purple Power Bowls look absolutely delicious, but I don’t care too much for beets. My boyfriend will definitely enjoy this recipe. :-)
Yum! This looks so good, I can’t wait to try to make it. I just got a food processor, so I’m looking forward to trying out the vegetable shredder attachment. I love all of the vegetarian and vegan recipes you’ve been posting lately!
This looks so good! I used to sometimes buy a power protein something-or-other salad from Trader Joe’s that was a lot like this, and I loved it so much.
I had a couple thoughts about the longevity of your not-yet-used ingredients–it’s really just the avocado and the baby salad greens that are likely to go nasty quickly, right? (Maybe the beans and rice too?) Especially if you don’t shred all the vegetables right away, they should keep for a while. Here’re my ideas–rice & chickpeas freeze great, as does avocado! For the avocado, you can scoop a half out of the peel, dip it in water with a little lemon juice mixed in, wrap it up good and pop it in the freezer. Only problem is, when you thaw it it’s far better for a smooth guac than as slices. I’ve also enjoyed hearty salads with shredded kale leaves as the main green, and bagged whole kale keeps great . So, if you want to prolong your eating window from one week into several, you can freeze the more fragile stuff in baggies, turn any leftover frozen avocado into part of your dressing, and opt for kale or another long-keeping green.
Question – did you cook the beets first or shred them raw? I didn’t know I could eat beets raw if that’s the case and that would be exciting for me!
I just shredded them raw! :) I never knew you could eat them raw, either, until I saw them on the salad bar at Whole Foods. I tried them on my salad and LOVED them. Now that I know I can buy singular beets from WF in the produce section, I’m so happy (buying an entire bunch is just too many for me to eat). :)
If it wasn’t so hot where I live, the leftover veg could be turned into a soup. The avocado would have to be relegated to a different recipe. Or directly to my tummy.
Love it! I’ve been obsessed with the power bowls lately. You just read my mind! :) The beets and red cabbage are such a welcoming addition I haven’t thought of. I made mine with green beans (your recipe!) one day, and with steamed broccoli next day.
Also delicious in these kinds of bowls? The quick pickled red onion. :-)
YES! :D
Second is a correction–known for know
These look perfect for hot summer days when I don’t want something too heavy to eat. Plus it’s so pretty with all the colors!
Do you add the avocado to all 5? Will it brown? And do you just add the dressing before you eat each bowl or when you prep all 5?
Ah, I forgot to clarify that in the post. I actually keep all the ingredients separately in the fridge, then build them fresh every day. That way if one of the vegetables gets a little soft or slimy faster than the others it won’t make the others go bad faster. The avocado will get a little brown over the few days, but they still taste great.
This maybe well known–Trick learned from someone from South Texas, leave the avocado seed in the remainder of the already cut avocado that is in waiting in the fridge. It should keep it relatively fresh and green. Just wrap it in plastic wrap.
It will help if you leave the pit in the portion of the avocado you aren’t using and put some plastic wrap onto the flesh. Oxygen is the enemy here.