I’m a huge fan of keeping meals as simple as possible during the week.
I don’t know about you, but by the time I get home from work on a Tuesday, my brain is pretty much fried beyond the point of talking, let alone putting together an impressive, elaborate meal.
For this reason, Mark and I get into meal ruts. Bad. We make the same roasted vegetable salad every week, at least once a week. We always have some sort of Mexican food, whether it be burrito bowls or tacos. We always have popcorn. It’s hard to change it up when we have these tasty meals down to a system.
A couple of weeks ago, Mark asked if we could change it up a little bit. He mentioned that he wanted to try Thai, specifically something with a Thai peanut sauce. When you ask a girl who singles out peanut butter as its own food group to make you peanut butter…for dinner…, you better believe that she’s going to say a resounding “heeeeeck yes!”
Because we plan our meals ahead of time, I knew that we’d be making this meal on a Thursday. We already had all of the ingredients, with the exception of some beautiful green onions that I picked up at a farmer’s market. When I got home, we were able to whip out this meal in under an hour. And 98% of that time consisted of us waiting for the rice to cook.
Not only are they ridiculously simple, but these Thai Peanut Burrito Bowls are completely and utterly out-of-this-world tasty. That whole wanting to get out of a food rut kind of back-fired on Mark. We’ve had this meal three times in the past two weeks. But you better believe that neither of us are complaining.
Could this be the perfect post-work day meal? I’ll let you decide.
(hint: yes.)
The preparation of these Thai Peanut Burrito Bowls is completely mindless – if you can boil water, turn on your oven, and mix a few ingredients in a bowl, you can make this meal. No matter how fried your brain is from work. ;)
And honestly, the other ingredients are just here to facilitate a more civilized way of getting this homemade peanut sauce into your mouth. Yes, brown jasmine rice is delicious, and yes, roasted vegetables make my heart soar. But this sauce…
When I taste this sauce, I hear the Hallelujah Chorus. I kid you not.
It’s seriously rich. It’s ultra creamy. It’s slightly spicy. It’s made of freakin’ peanut butter. Guys. Perfect doesn’t even begin to describe this sauce.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what really makes this sauce special is the ginger. This is a huge surprise coming from someone who denounced this root for years. After trying ginger in a juice however, I’ve been hooked ever since. I’m obsessed with it’s spicy warm bite…add a little peanut butter, garlic, Sriracha, honey/maple syrup, and soy sauce, and you have the world’s most addictive peanut sauce. I’m head-over-heels in love with this sauce!
Oh, and just a friendly a word of advice: make a double-batch. You’ll want need it.
Mark and I cannot rave about these Thai Peanut Burrito Bowls enough! Mark, who’s even a bigger Mexican food-lover than me, said that he might even like this version better than the original. He also said that sauce is drinkable. I have no room to judge if you give that a try.
PrintThai Peanut Burrito Bowls
- Yield: 2-3 bowls
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown jasmine rice (or rice of choice)
- 3 and 1/2 tsp. low-sodium Tamari or liquid aminos, divided
- 3 cups broccoli florets
- 1 red pepper, cut into strips
- 1 Tbsp. olive oil
- salt + pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- 1 and 1/4 tsp. pressed/grated garlic
- 1 and 1/2 tsp. freshly grated ginger*
- 1 tsp.+ Sriracha
- 1 tsp. honey/maple syrup
- hot water, as needed
- For serving: peanuts, green onion, lime juice
Instructions
- Prepare the rice according to package instructions, adding 1 tsp. Tamari/liquid aminos to the water while it’s cooking.
- While the rice is cooking, prepare the vegetables: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- Place broccoli and red pepper onto the prepared baking sheet and toss with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and roast for 20-25 minutes, or until broccoli is charred. Toss every couple of minutes to ensure even cooking.
- While the rice is cooking and vegetables are roasting, make the Thai Peanut Sauce: Add peanut butter, garlic, ginger, Sriracha, honey, and remaining 2 and 1/2 tsp. Tamari/liquid aminos to a small bowl. Slowly add some hot water to thin, and mix to combine. You’ll want the sauce pourable, but not overly watery. Use your judgement here. Taste, and adjust as needed.
- Assemble your Thai Peanut Burrito Bowls: Place rice in the bottom of a bowl. Add vegetables, and douse with your Thai Peanut Sauce. Top with chopped peanuts, green onion, and a gentle squirt of lime juice, if desired. Serve with extra sauce and Sriracha.
Notes
*We like to keep our ginger in the freezer to preserve it’s freshness. We grate it right out of the freezer!
I LOVE peanut sauces! Oh, and roasted veggies! I’m totally with you on the dinner ruts. Each season, we have about 3 meals that we make over and over again. It does make grocery shopping and meal planning easy, though! But I’m ready for a new season now to switch it up!
Yum!! I recently baked up a bunch of tofu that would go really well with this.
What an awesome concept! Peanut butter IS it’s own food group, so I’m a huge proponent of having it every day— or meal ;)
I totally get into weekday dinner ruts as well—- we pretty much rotate through the same 7-8 dishes every week or two. I’ll definitely have to try this in the rotation!
It’s always a good thing when you can have peanut butter for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. ;) I’m glad you like this recipe, Liz!
I love this recipe so much – it’s my go-to weeknight meal and I make it at least once a month. I’m actually shocked looking back that the original recipe doesn’t have tofu in it because I think I’ve made it with tofu every time. What I do is dry fry some tofu on the stovetop, and add quite a bit of extra water to the sauce, then once my tofu is crispy on both sides I pour the sauce on and let it simmer and soak into the tofu while I wait for my rice and veggies. This lets the flavors in the sauce really meld together and the sauce-soaked tofu lumps are divine. If you want to add tofu to this I highly recommend this method, rather than just cooking it separately and drizzling the sauce on.
Once again thank you so much for this recipe, it’s by far my most-made dinner and I’m still not sick of it!
So happy to hear that!
My husband is usually a big meat eater. But he loves fresh ground peanut butter. And he is open to having meatless nights. I thought he would enjoy this, so I made sure to make a double batch of the sauce. He absolutely loved this. Thank you so much!
So so happy to hear that! <3
Haven’t made this yet, but I want to mention what a great idea freezing ginger is! I always have leftover pieces, but end up throwing them out because they would go bad before using them.
It’s honestly SO helpful — I can never use up a huge chunk of it before it goes bad.
We really enjoy this recipe (have made it several times) but definitely make a double batch of the sauce!