A fantastic way to incorporate more vegetables and fruit into your daily meals is making colorful and flavorful healthy food bowls. They are packed with nutrients and yet do not sacrifice flavor as a perfect way to start the new year right. Preparing a healthy bowl is as simple as picking a type of whole grains as a base (brown rice, quinoa, barley), vegetables of your choice, protein, your favorite dressing and finishing it with something crunchy like almonds or pepitas. Voilá, you have a balanced, healthy meal.
I recommend using raw tahini, which is a great ingredient to keep handy for quick and delicious dressings. This dijon mustard and tahini recipe has become a staple for my family, among a few other tahini-based dressings. This bowl is a fun way to use acorn squash, which when thinly sliced and roasted adds a sweet nuttiness and satisfying crunch.
Roasted Acorn Squash Bowl with Tahini Dressing
Mix ingredients in layers in your favorite bowl, then top with dressing and serve.
Tahini Dressing
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup tahini
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp. Dijon mustard
• 2 tsp. maple syrup or honey
• ½ tsp. fine sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 Tbs. cold water, more as needed
Set the oven to 375 degrees. While it’s heating up, simmer one cup of quinoa in two cups of water, cover the pot and reduce the heat (should be done around 15 minutes). Meanwhile, slice the acorn, coat the acorn slices with good olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper, bake until soft and a bit browned.
While the acorn squash is roasting, prepare the tahini dressing by combining all of the ingredients and stirring well.
Next, chop the kale and add a handful to your bowl, scoop the desired amount of cooked quinoa onto the bowl, the roasted butternut squash, slices of avocado, dried cranberries and pepita seeds, and then drizzle it with the tahini sauce.
Bon appetite!
