This Sweet Potato, Squash and Kale Buddha Bowl is a delicious way to enjoy roasted fall root vegetables – just add some tahini dressing!
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How to make Kale Buddha Bowls
This recipe pretty much perfect for any and all kinds of food restrictions and diets. These Buddha bowls are vegan, gluten-free, high-fibre, low-calorie, filled with lots of good fats… and squash! Lots of squash. Here's how to make these buddha bowls:
- Toss chickpeas with olive oil and seasonings, then roast for 20 min, tossing halfway through.
- Meanwhile, prepare other veggies, tossing all (except for kale) in olive oil and a pinch of salt, and placing on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Roast for 30 minutes.
- In the last 5 minutes of cook time, add the kale – this way you won't overcook it.
- While the veggies are roasting, make the dressing using a food processor or blender.
- Once everything has finished cooking, toss all together in a large bowl then drizzle with dressing and optional toppings. Enjoy!
Ingredients in Kale Buddha Bowls
This Sweet Potato, Squash and Kale Buddha Bowl is a delicious way to get all your fall veggies in one bowl. I mean, I don't know about you but I am OBSESSED with root vegetables. Once fall rolls around each year, I can't get enough roasted beets, carrots, squash and brussels sprouts.
Either way, you're gonna fall in love with this bowl. Here's what you need to make it:
- sweet potato
- acorn squash
- portobello mushrooms
- beet
- red onion
- kale
- chickpeas & spices
- Cilantro Tahini Dressing
Ingredient substitutions
Chickpeas – You can boil and cook some lentils ahead of time for this recipe instead of the chickpeas, or even use tofu if you'd like to add a protein source but keep it vegetarian. You can also use chicken, shrimp or steak if you're a meat eater.
Veggies – In terms of veggies, you can pretty much use whatever you'd like! Some great suggestions for sub ins include cauliflower, bell pepper or any root vegetable like carrots, parsnips, turnips, butternut squash and more.
Sauce – In place of the tahini, you can use sunflower butter, cashew butter or almond butter. Tahini is basically sesame seed butter so finding a neutral-flavoured nut or seed butter is key. I do not recommend peanut butter. You can also try lime juice or rice vinegar instead of lemon juice, and you can use any fresh herbs that you'd like or just leave out the fresh herbs altogether.
Making the tahini sauce
This tahini sauce will last up to 5 days in the fridge – you're going to want to use it on everything! Here's what you need to make it:
- ¼ cup tahini
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup chopped cilantro or parsley (cilantro is my fave)
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/4 tsp salt
Blend it all up together in whatever appliance suits you best, and you've got dressing for days!
Making the crispy chickpeas
These chickpeas are the perfect snack, so consider making them another time just for snacking purposes! You can also make them up to 2 days in advance for these bowls. Here's what you need:
- chickpeas
- olive oil
- lime juice
- chili powder
- garlic powder
- salt
Roast them for 20-30 minutes and you're golden! You can roast for more if you'd really like a crunch to them.
Storing and reheating
You can store the leftovers of this recipe up to 5 days in the fridge. I'd recommend storing the chickpeas separately to help them retain their crunch and not get soggy, and you should also store the dressing separately so it doesn't make the veggies soggy and you can easily reheat the bowls before adding the dressing.
Reheating on a sheet pan in the oven to completely revive this recipe as new, or microwave for 1-2 minutes until warm, then add your dressing.
Freezing components of this recipe
You can't freeze these buddha bowls per se, but you can freeze the chickpeas after they have been baked, and you can freeze the cooked sweet potato and squash. It doesn't necessarily make sense to me to do any freezing, but these are the options you have if you'd like to make components ahead of time.
More buddha bowl recipes
Meal prep tools for this recipe
- Grab some glass meal prep bowls if you plan on turning this recipe into your weekly lunches.
- I love my Vitamix for whipping up this tasty dressing!
- I like this brand of tahini.
Sweet Potato, Squash and Kale Buddha Bowl
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 sweet potato sliced
- 1 acorn squash sliced
- 2 Portobello mushrooms sliced
- 1 beet sliced
- 1 small red onion sliced
- 1 cup kale
Roasted Chili Lime Chickpeas
- 1 can chickpeas drained, rinsed and dried
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
Cilantro Tahini Dressing
- ¼ cup tahini
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup chopped cilantro or parsley
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/4 tsp salt
Optional toppings
- sesame seeds
- pumpkin seeds
- Coconut chips
- Sliced avocado
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 F. Toss chickpeas with olive oil and seasonings, then spread out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 min, removing from oven and tossing halfway through.
- Meanwhile, prepare other veggies, tossing all (except for kale) in olive oil and a pinch of salt, and placing on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Roast for 30 minutes. In the last 5 minutes of cook time, add the kale.
- While veggies are roasting, make the dressing in a food processor, Magic Bullet or blender.
- Once everything has finished cooking, toss all together in a large bowl. Drizzle with dressing and serve immediately.
Nutrition
*Nutrition info does not include optional toppings
Janine Waite says
Oh my goodness, this is delicious! I made it for the family tonight, and everyone loved it! Thanks for such a tasty and healthy recipe. It is definitely a keeper!
Christine says
This recipe looks delicious! I am planning on meal preparing it for lunch this week, do you have any recommendations for the best way to store it? Just mix everything together and divide it and store and then reheat when ready?
Taylor Stinson says
Thanks so much Christine!!! I would just mix everything together and then store in some glass/plastic containers. You can reheat when ready or eat cold 🙂
Brandi Parsons says
I love almost any and every vegetable, with the exception of mushrooms… Most of the time I just omit the mushrooms from the recipes, but today I’ve finally decided to ask, what can I replace them with??
Taylor Stinson says
Hey Brandi…I don’t know that you necessarily need to! There are a ton of veggies in these bowls. If you wanted another veggie option I would definitely suggest bell peppers or zucchini 🙂
Brandi Parsons says
My daughter and I made this tonight for our quite large family, most of whom are meat eaters, so to help fill then we added brown rice and quinoa.. This was AMAZING!!! Even the most pickiest of the eaters from the bunch was full of compliments!! Will be a much saved recipe in our books!!
Taylor Stinson says
I’m so happy that you all liked it Brandi!!! Love the addition of the quinoa, good for extra protein! Thanks so much for sharing with me <3
Austin says
My husband and I are SO EXCITED to make this recipe tonight. My husband is a picky eater and doesn’t always feel right after eating meat so we have recently switched to being vegetarians ( I try my best but still have the occasional craving for a steak since I’m pregnant and just can’t help myself!) If we can do an all vegan meal, we love that too! This looks amazing. I couldn’t find tahini at my local store ( we live in the middle of nowhere in the mountains) so I took the rest of a jar of dry roasted peanuts that were lightly salted and food processed them with a little bit of sesame oil until it creamed together and I’m hoping that will suffice as a good substitute! Roasting up my chickpeas now, so excited and can’t wait to try it all together!!
Taylor Stinson says
Hey Austin! I hope you loved these bowls, I’m so happy to hear how excited you are to try them!!! They’re so filling and wholesome. Good call on the peanuts – for future reference almond, cashew, sunflower or natural peanut butter would probably work as well in place of the tahini 🙂
Terri Hayes says
DO you have a recipe for the cilantro tahini dressing?
Taylor Stinson says
So sorry Terri – it was listed there but there wasn’t a clear heading to differentiate it from the rest of the ingredient list (looks like an error with my recipe plugin). I have updated it so it’s easier to see 🙂
Sonia says
This dish tastes wonderful. The recipe relies too much on guesswork though (it doesn’t specify whether or not to peel the squash or how thickly or thinly to make slices of the various vegetables for example), which may explain the seriously undercooked beets. Also, I know I am a slow chopper but I don’t know how anyone could prep all these vegetables and chickpeas and a sauce in 15 minutes. Despite this need for some tweaking, it is indeed a very tasty recipe.
Taylor Stinson says
Hi Sonia – I’m so glad you liked it! I will have to take your recipe notes into account for the future. Looking back I can say that it would definitely take you longer than 15 minutes to prep the veggies, and I did cut the veggies into smaller pieces. I’m going to update the recipe to recommend smaller cuts now. Thanks again for your feedback and for letting me know how it turned out 🙂
Rowena says
The print link on this recipe doesn’t work, it goes to #404
Taylor Stinson says
Oh no! I’m sorry about this Rowena – I’m going to look into it today. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Taylor Stinson says
Okay, I have an update for you! 🙂 The link now works! Thanks again for letting me know so I could fix it!
VirtuDiaries says
Also tried printing this just today and not working for me. Gremlins.
Joy says
Layers of flavors and textures! I love love loved this. I felt full and satisfied without that heavy feeling. Super clean eating. I didn’t do the avocado or mushrooms and I didn’t feel it was missing a thing.
Taylor Stinson says
I’m so happy you liked it Joy!!! Yeah there are a lot of veggies in here – it doesn’t matter if you leave a couple out hahah. Thanks for coming back and sharing with me 🙂
Chelsea @ Chelsea's Healthy Kitchen says
Yessss I love all the fall veg in this! Plus roasted chickpeas and tahini sauce? Basically my ideal bowl right here.
Taylor Stinson says
Thanks so much Chelsea 🙂