Meal prep ideas can be so helpful during the week to keep your diet on track. These Grilled Chicken Veggie Bowls are delicious and healthy make-ahead meals!
Grilled Chicken Veggie Bowls
Thrilled to share my Grilled Chicken Veggie Bowls with you today! My husband and I decided we wanted to try the meal prep world by preparing a weeks worth of food before hand. These Grilled Chicken Veggie Bowls were soooo good and it was so convenient having them prepared and ready to eat. We chose to make 8 bowls worth of food. This equates to 4 days of meals for 2 people. This allowed us flexibility for the other days to have a different lunch.
Ingredients
Here’s your line-up of ingredients. We decided to add 5 different vegetables to mix it up a little. You could simplify it by using 3 different types. We used some disposable Tupperware containers you can find at your local grocery store. They worked great for our portions.
Grilled Chicken Recipes
Grill up my Taco and Lime Chicken to get started.
You’ll need 16 ounces of cooked quinoa and 16 ounces of cooked brown rice. Cook them both according to package directions. We cooked extra so we could freeze some and save for future meals.
Roast your veggies. Note that the cauliflower takes longer to cook, so I recommend putting the cauliflower on it’s own baking sheet.
Here we have french haricot vert green beans, asparagus, and brussels sprouts. Asparagus only takes 7 minutes to roast so those come out early.
Meal Prep Ideas
Here is the post-cooked line up. This is what makes up your “bowls.” Again, you can ease up the process by choosing 3 or less different types of vegetables. We cooked 5 different types for diversity and added 1.5 cups worth to each meal.
Brown rice.
Roasted cauliflower. This is my favorite. So flavorful! Here is the recipe.
My Grilled Taco Lime Chicken, cubed.
Roasted asparagus, ready to go.
A bit of charred corn. See my recipe and photos HERE.
Roasted haricot verts.
MEAL PREP TIME
-These 8 meals took Cullen and I about 2 hours but that includes the photo shoot. We figure it will take one skilled cook or two novice cooks 1 to 1.5 hours.
-For the best chicken flavor, marinate the chicken for 5 to 8 hours, or overnight.
Grilled Chicken Veggie Bowls
Ingredients
- 16 ounces cooked quinoa
- 16 ounces cooked brown rice
- 4 cups/32 ounces roasted asparagus chopped
- 4 cups/32 ounces roasted broccoli florets
- 4 cups/32 ounces roasted cauliflower florets
- 32 ounces prepared Grilled Taco Lime Chicken cubed
Optional (would replace any of the vegetables above)
- 4 cups haricot verts
- 4 cups roasted brussel sprouts
- 4 cups charred corn
Instructions
- To prepare your bowls, we used 3-cup To Go snack containers. Place 1/4 cup brown rice and 1/4 cup quinoa into each container. Top with a total of 1 1/2 cups of your cooked vegetables. Mix up the type of vegetables for each bowl so you have a variety each day. Add 4 ounces or 1/2 cup of your cubed chicken. We added salsa or hot sauce to season to our liking after we reheated the bowl in the microwave. A low fat dressing would work as well. Store these in the refrigerator and when you are ready microwave until heated through.
- Note: To roast vegetables, place them onto a large baking sheet, drizzle lightly with olive oil, and season with kosher salt and pepper. Cook in oven at 375 degrees until fork tender. Time will vary depending on vegetable.
Welcome to my online kitchen! Picky Palate is where you’ll find family friendly recipes along with the best Disney eats, tips and copycat recipes! 
That looks delicious, nice and healthy and tasty, always a bonus to get it all wrapped up into one dish. I just love how practical your recipes are. I never feel like I have to make a special trip to the store to make what you post.
Those rules seem like I could follow them, except for the eating after 8:30pm part, I work the night shift and if I did that I would barely eat anything! I wonder what the night-shift equivalent of that is?
Thanks so much Carrie! That’s tricky about the night shift. You’d have to just make rules that worked for you 🙂
Great article. I’ve got to say though, you’re nutritional values are off!
A gram of carbohydrates or protein is kcals, A gram of fat is 9 kcals.
11.5g fat = 103.5
68g carbohydrates = 272
44g protein = 176
That is 551.5 kcals in total, not 418. Still, very healthy and a good balance of macronutrients.
*A gram of carbohydrates or protein is 4 kcals
Thank you for catching this. I found the error and corrected it.
Hi Jenny!! Your meal prep looks amazing! I’m thinking of starting on your challenge too but just wondering, what size of ‘sweets’ are allowed for your challenge? Like one small grape gummy bear vs a big cupcake?
The 3 sweets a week we consider usually 1 serving. So, if you eat half a cake then that would be multiple sweets. If you eat a gummy bear then, yes, that’d be the same….so you might as well have a small handful of gummy bears for 1 sweet.:) My husband had a triple scoop of ice cream last week and he considered that 3 sweets.
I’m thinking I need that kind of challenge in my life. The sweets eating is getting out of control. The last few days I have been only eating fruits and veggies…not the easiest when I bake all the time, but like you said, it is good for self control! Good luck with the challenge!
Sounds like a terrific challenge! Just out of curiosity, what are you eating for breakfast and what are you eating for dinner? I need some ideas for those meals!
Love the challenge idea! I am trying to talk my hubby and friends into doing something like this! Would you mind sharing your “weekly challenges?” Also, what constitutes as a sweet? Any calorie limits? Thanks!!! Excited!!!
Such a great idea ~ gotta love the prep!
What a fun challenge! Good for you guys!
These look so good! But we are doing Weight Watchers and when I plugged in the stats it comes to 14 points for one bowl! That is a lot of WW points for one meal!
400-500 calories for a meal is quite standard. What gives you the most points from these bowls? The rice/quinoa, perhaps? Could you substitute?
LOVE prepping the meals ahead of time!! makes life so much easier and temptations are way easier to resist!
OMG-How cool! I think it’s great you two are doing it together. I can’t wait to hear more about it has you guys progress.
Love this! I’ve been prepping my meals for a couple months now and it has saved me a lot of money and time on food. No more buying lunches at work, and making drives to the closest fast food spot after the gym (after work). Good luck! Can’t wait to see the results at the end of the challenge. However, the real challenge is making the changes for good for your health 🙂
I think this challenge is a fantastic idea! Great idea on the veggie bowl prep:)
I get over-the-top competitive when there are points and other “players” involved, so I’d more than likely become obsessed at winning this competition! Maybe not such a bad thing 😉
You have me really tempted to play along too!
I don’t drink any sodas or any juices (just coffee, tea and water for me), but if my fiance did this with me, are those beverages considered sweets or are they just not addressed to save everyone some sanity? Bc he drinks those like a camel!
Diet drinks are ok in our challenge, however each week we have an “extra” challenge and this week is no soda at all. You can really do whatever you’d like 🙂
Loving, loving, loving this idea!
This is such a fun great challenge! I love that idea, I think I should start something with friends.. we’re all competitive so it could get dirty! 🙂
Haha!!
What a fun idea, Jenny! I love making meals ahead and these Chicken Veggie Bowls look fabulous!
This is an awesome post! Thank you!!
Can’t thank you enough for always sharing your fabulous recipes! Your grilled lime chicken is my go-to while trying to get healthier! So easy and so flavorful! Love! Can’t wait to add the veggies and prep my week!
Thanks so much Michaela!
These sound yummy! I think I would skip the quinoa/rice on a day or two and add the chicken and veggies to lettuce with a light vinegarette! Thanks for the inspiration!
I think that challenge sounds really fun! Granted, I don’t know if I could get my hubby on board with something like that, but these veggie bowls would certainly help 😉
I love these grab-and-go lunch ideas! And the challenge sounds so fun. I’m always wondering how you can resist all those amazing treats you make 😉
That is SO awesome!! My husband and I have actually started our own “reset” with school starting and it feels good 🙂 Best of lucj to you guys! (By the way the chicken veggie bowls look great!!)
Do you think it would work to freeze these individual meals and reheat in the microwave from frozen? Any ideas how to make that more possible?
We haven’t tried freezing. We kept them in the fridge for the week and they were fine. There shouldn’t be a problem freezing the meals. I’d buy the freezer ziplocks for this. 🙂
This looks SO GOOD!!
I just ran to the store and stocked up on veggies and good food yesterday — I’ve got to lose the rest of this baby weight before the holidays!!
Good luck with your challenge!! I’d seriously fail just because of the sweets.
I love seeing the prep updates on Fit Men Cook too! I’ve been meaning to buy myself some new Tupperware to start the prep work, so thanks for the rundown! This totally looks like something I can do!
Unless I missed it already, how LONG did the food prep take you overall?
Nicola, we forgot to add prep time so thank you for the question. I updated the post at the bottom to include this information!! 🙂
ok, this challenge is seriously FUN and competitive so that would make me want to try harder just to win!! i love what a great idea is to portion all this out so you don’t overeat! smart!!!! i’m getting back into the gym and this post is awesome!
The challenge sounds fun and these healthy rice and quinoa bowls are a great way to go!
Wow – three sweets a week?!? I’m impressed!
Can’t wait to hear how everything goes. These chicken veggie bowls look great!!
I have been trying to think of easy ideas and not the same boring salads for lunches! Can’t wait to try it!
You’ll love it Lauren, so great having something to just grab out of the fridge completely ready!
What a terrific idea to join forces. It’s got to make it so much more fun. Great idea for meal prep too. I get teased a lot for making double batches of meals, but it’s a great way to have a healthy lunch or quick dinner later.
I think I need this challenge! My sweet intake is a little out of control! Will you be done by October? I hope so:) And then maybe we need to start a blogging challenge:)
Haha! I’ll be saving up my sweet points for October 🙂 I’ll need to do lots of hiking, can’t wait!! xoxo
This is awesome Jenny!! Looks delicious! My husband has been really working hard at the gym, and eating well. This whole meal process would help both of us in a few weeks when I’m ready to start dropping the preggo lbs. I need a new grill pan – going to check yours out! 🙂
Great great post!! And good luck with the challenge!!
A year later and I’m still working off those preggo pounds, lol! This is good for me, but those 3 sweets a week are killer! Can’t wait to meet that sweet baby!!
3 sweets a week?!? I think I might eat 3 sweets at DAY! And maybe more. 😉 Hmmm…I think I need a little challenge myself.
Oh Bridget, I was probably having 10 sweets a day, lol! This is good for me learning self control, but I am struggling, lol! xoxo
I don’t do it as often as I like, but prepping our lunches ahead of time always makes life a little easier! Great recipe – thanks for sharing! 🙂