Healthy AND Delicious? We Love When That Happens
Turmeric and ginger are often paired together for their powerful medicinal properties. So, in the “let food be thy medicine” way of cooking, we present this easy chicken rice bowl that combines the wonderful flavors of chicken marinated in turmeric and ginger with cilantro-lime rice and creamy cilantro ranch dressing. It’s a fresh feel-good meal that is both comforting and satisfying.
Our Favorite Chicken Rice Bowl
The flavors in this rice bowl are a big love fest. Cilantro and lime go well together, and turmeric and ginger are good flavor friends, and everything altogether is just the pinnacle of good stuff. We love cilantro lime rice as a way to add pizazz to regular white rice and it goes great with the warming flavors of turmeric ginger chicken. What is turmeric best paired with? Black pepper is known to help absorb turmeric, and ginger has long been paired with turmeric in cooking to support digestion, mood, and healthy joints and muscles. Does cooking turmeric destroy its benefits? Turmeric contains curcumin, which is mostly recognized as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, and has lots of other great benefits to boot. Cooking turmeric is thought to lessen its beneficial properties somewhat, but cooking it for the short amount of time required by this recipe doesn’t negate its healthful qualities. To skip to the juicy part, eating turmeric is good for you!
How To Make Cilantro-Lime Rice Bowls
Building a chicken and rice bowl is easy when you break it down into parts. We’re making a marinated chicken, a cilantro ranch dressing, a bunch of veggies, with a rice base.
Make the marinade. Toss the chicken in the marinade to coat well. How long does it take to marinate chicken? You can either marinate the chicken at room temperature for 15 minutes or refrigerate it overnight. We don’t recommend marinating the chicken for longer than overnight because the texture will break down.
Cook the cilantro-lime rice recipe.
Cook the chicken in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, about 2-3 minutes per side.
Ranch it up! Prepare the cilantro ranch in a food processor or in a jar with an immersion blender.
Serve the bowls! Divide the cilantro lime rice amongst the bowls. Top with the chicken, shaved red cabbage, and avocado slices. Drizzle cilantro ranch over the entire bowl and garnish with fresh cilantro.
Ingredients for Building Tasty Rice Bowls
The fun part about making rice bowls is that many of the ingredients would also be great guest stars in other recipes. We’re thinking of our Vegetarian Burrito Bowl with Avocado Crema that also uses that delicious cilantro-lime rice. The turmeric ginger chicken would be terrific with Mediterranean Couscous Salad or our famous Kale Caesar Salad. If you have leftover cilantro ranch dressing, it would make a great alternative dipping sauce for these Potato Wedges or Healthy Baked Chicken Tenders. A few other rice bowls we crave often are our Chicken Teriyaki Sushi Rice Bowl, Salmon Bowl with ponzu or our Macadamia Nut Crusted Fish Bowl. And you definitely need to try our Gyro Bowl if you love rice bowls with Greek flavors.
Tools You’ll Need
A small food processor, a jar and an immersion blender, to make the dressing
Here Are Some More One Bowl Wonders
Show Us That Cilantro, Ginger, And Turmeric Love
Did you make this turmeric ginger chicken rice bowl? Show us a picture and maybe even a video of the beautiful people you feed it to. Tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper. Happy eating!
