Greek Rice Bowl: Nourishing And Delicious
Tuck into a bowl of Greek deliciousness with lemon rice, tomato salad, fried peppers, tzatziki and olives. Top this Greek rice nourish bowl with halloumi for vegetarians or hummus if you’re after a plant-based meal. The different elements of the recipe all come together in the time it takes to cook the rice.
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There’s nothing quite as joyous as a nourish bowl full of a variety of delicious foods. It’s like a meze feast in one bowl and one of my favourite things to eat.
Dive Right In
- Why Make A Greek Rice Bowl?
- Greek Rice Bowl
- Ingredients
- How To Make A Greek Rice Bowl
- Turn This Greek Rice Bowl Into A Feast
- Other Nourish Bowl Recipes You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- Pin The Recipe
- The Recipe
Why Make A Greek Rice Bowl?
If you love simple food with delicious flavours and healthy ingredients, you’ll love this Greek rice bowl. Read on to find out why you need to make it.
- Aesthetic Appeal – Eating with your eyes is always a good start to a meal. The colourful and vibrant elements of this bowl draw the eye in an appetising way. It’s photogenic too, so a good one to post on social media.
- Healthy and Nutrient Packed – This Greek rice nourish bowl aligns with the principles of the Mediterranean diet, which is renowned for its health benefits, including heart health, weight management and longevity. It provides a well-balanced meal and is a powerhouse of nutrition, combining whole grain rice with fresh veggies, proteins and healthy fats.
- Meal Prep Friendly – Although my Greek rice bowl is delicious served warm, it’s also very good at room temperature too. This means you can prep the various components in advance, making it an excellent choice for meal planning. Make a larger batch and enjoy it for several days. It’s perfect for lunch boxes too.
- Mediterranean Flavours – Greek cuisine is known for its vibrant and fresh flavours. This nourish bowl brings together classic Mediterranean ingredients like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and herbs, creating a refreshing and satisfying taste experience.
- Quick and Easy to Prepare – Despite the bowl’s varied elements, this dish is fairly simple to prepare. It’s a great option for busy weeknights or meal prepping and offers an interesting and delicious meal with minimal effort. It takes half an hour from start to finish if you don’t include the rice soaking time.
- Versatile – You can easily customise my Greek rice nourish bowl to suit your dietary preferences and needs. It’s already gluten-free, nut-free and vegetarian, but you can easily tweak the ingredients to make it vegan.
Greek Rice Bowl
If you’ve not tried Greek rice before, you’re in for a treat. It’s cooked with onions, garlic and lemon with freshly chopped parsley mixed in at end. This gives it a lively zing, which instantly brightens your mood and energises your day.
Serve the rice with a few other simple Greek recipes and you have a nourishing bowl packed with vibrant Mediterranean flavours.
If you don’t like garlic, this Greek rice bowl probably isn’t for you. It’s very garlicky. Although, you can of course, reduce the amounts given in the recipe.
For a plant-based Greek rice bowl, use vegetarian strained yoghurt rather than a dairy one for the tzatziki and hummus rather than halloumi for the main protein element.
Ingredients
Although there are quite a few elements to this bowl, the ingredients are simple ones and often used repetitively. Olive oil, onion and garlic, for example are in most of the recipes. As with most simple recipes, the quality of the ingredients really counts though.
Extra Virgin Olive oil
This whole recipe stands by the flavour of olive oil, so use as good a one as you can find, or afford. It features in virtually every element of this Greek rice bowl. Luckily, it’s good for you and in any case I haven’t really used that much in total.
If you can get hold of a Greek brand, I’ve heard it’s one of the best in the world. I’m not sure how much difference it makes to the overall flavour, but it sort of gives the nourish bowl a bit more authenticity.
Greek Rice
You don’t need to make this recipe to enjoy Greek lemon rice. It’s delicious in its own right and if you haven’t tried it before, I urge you to do so.
Brown Rice
You can use any type of whole grain rice for this recipe. Long grain rice is more traditional though. I use brown basmati rice.
Brown rice is a whole grain and thus much better for you than white rice. It’s full of fibre and is more nutritious.
Lemon
Apart from rice, lemon is the key ingredient in Greek rice. I use some of the zest as well as the juice. If you do the same, try to get hold of an organic lemon as this won’t have been sprayed with nasties. If you can’t find one, use an unwaxed lemon, but give it a good scrub. Otherwise, give your lemon a good scrub in warm soapy water to try and get rid of the wax.
Parsley
I’ve waxed lyrical about the wonders of parsley many times before, so I won’t do so again. But it’s a wonder herb full of all sorts of nutrients. It tastes good too.
Use healthy fresh green parsley for this recipe.
Greek Tomato Salad
You only need five ingredients for this recipe, including salt. Find a large salad tomato or two smaller ones. The tomatoes need to be ripe but firm and most importantly, full of flavour.
Other than tomato, you just need spring onions (scallions), dried oregano, salt and some of the aforementioned olive oil.
I used chilli salt, because I just can’t help myself. And also because tomato and chilli go so well together.
Greek Fried Peppers
Greek fried peppers also require only five ingredients, including salt.
Any coloured sweet peppers work well for this nourish bowl. Choose your favourite colour or colours or, as I did, go with the only one you have in the fridge.
If you’re tomato is a red one, it makes sense to use a colour other than red to maximise the colours in the nourish bowl.
Onion, garlic, olive oil and salt are the only other ingredients needed for the fried peppers.
The Rest
There are three other elements to the bowl. A fourth, if you’d like to serve it with a lemon slice or two.
Halloumi
As with many cheeses, halloumi varies in taste and quality. Go for a halloumi cheese that’s made in Cyprus if you can. That’s where the cheese originated from. It should be made with either sheep or goat’s milk, although sometimes you get a mix of the two.
If you’re vegetarian, do make sure the halloumi doesn’t contain animal rennet. Most don’t but some of the cheaper ones do.
Halloumi is quite salty. If you’re at all worried by this, you can rinse it under the tap and dry it before cooking.
If you’re vegan, simply swap the halloumi for a vegan version. Or use hummus instead.
Olives
Black kalamata olives are the best ones to use in this recipe. Not only are they very tasty, but they’re also Greek. However, sometimes (often in my case) you just need to be pragmatic, so if you have other types of olive in the house, use those instead.
Be warned though, kalamata olives usually contain pits. If you use them, don’t forget to warn other diners about them.
Tzatziki
Tzatziki provides the creamy element to this bowl. It’s also quite rich and chock full of garlicky flavour. Made with Greek yoghurt, cooling cucumber and mint, it adds a much needed dimension. If you omit any of the other elements, don’t leave this one out.
You can buy tzatziki, but if you have time do make your own. Homemade tzatziki is so much nicer than shop bought and it’s also healthier.
How To Make A Greek Rice Bowl
Despite the number of components in this Greek rice bowl, they’re all very easy to make. Don’t be daunted, you’ll be surprised at just how quickly this bowl comes together.
Please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of this post for full instructions, timings and quantities of ingredients used.
Greek Rice
Step 1. Soak Rice
Soak the rice in water for at least two hours. You can do this for anything up to twenty four hours. Give it a good rinse, by pouring off any debris. Add more cold water and pour off again. Then pour into a sieve to drain.
You don’t have to soak the rice, but I thoroughly recommend it. It produces a fluffier finish and decreases the cooking time quite considerably. This is especially true of whole grain brown rice.
Top Tip
Brown rice often has dust and other debris that comes along with it. So a good wash is essential. It’s much easier to wash soaked rice than dry rice as the rice sinks. If you don’t have time to soak your rice, cover it with boiling water. The rice should then sink, making it easier to pour off the dirty water and any unwanted bits.
Step 2. Fry Rice
Once the rice is draining, peel the onion or shallot and chop it finely. Fry in the oil over a moderate heat until it’s softened and translucent. You’ll need a small lidded pan for this.
Peel the garlic then finely grate it into the onions and stir. A microplane (affiliate link) is brilliant for this. Add the rice and stir-fry for a minute or two. You want all of the rice grains coated in the garlicky oil.
Step 3. Simmer Rice
Scrub the lemon and dry it. Zest one half and set aside. A microplane is brilliant for this (see above). Cut the lemon into two pieces. Squeeze the juice from the zested half and put the other in the fridge. Or use it to make the tzatziki.
Pour the lemon juice into the pan along with the water. Add the salt and stir. Bring the water to the boil, clamp the lid on the pan and simmer very gently for twenty five minutes.
Turn the heat off, but leave the pan in situ to steam for ten minutes before taking the lid off.
Whilst the rice is steaming finely chop the parsley. Take out any tough stems, but include any tender ones.
Add the black pepper, lemon zest and parsley to the pan and fluff the rice up with a fork, mixing in the afore mentioned ingredients as you go.
Serve straight away whilst still warm, though it’s also quite nice at room temperature too.
Top Tip
If you use white rice, it won’t need to cook as long and will require a bit less water.
Greek Tomato Salad
Greek tomato salad is a very simple recipe with only four ingredients. But as long as you have a good tomato, it’s really delicious and complements the rest of the bowl elements really well.
Wash and dry the tomato then chop it into smallish chunks and transfer to a small mixing bowl.
Wash and trim the spring onions (scallions). Then slice them finely and add to the bowl. You want both the green parts and the white.
Sprinkle the salt and oregano over the tomatoes, then drizzle the olive oil over the top.
Mix everything together and leave to marinade for twenty minutes or so. The rice will absorb any excess juices.
Greek Fried Peppers
Peel the onion, cut it in half lengthways, then slice into thin half moons.
Using a frying pan, fry the onions in the oil over a moderate heat until they’re translucent.
Wash, core and deseed the pepper, then cut lengthways into chunky slices. Add to the onions and continue to fry until they start to soften. Give an occasional stir.
Peel the garlic, then cut into matchsticks. Add to the pan along with the salt and stir-fry for a few more minutes. The garlic should be golden, but not burnt and the peppers tender and slightly charred, but still with a good bite to them.
Serve warm from the pan.
Greek Rice Bowl
Whilst the peppers are frying, pat the halloumi dry with a sheet of kitchen towel. Slice it into six long (or twelve shorter) thin pieces.
Dry fry, griddle or air fry on both side until golden. I used my air fryer.
Divide the rice between two bowls. Then distribute the warm peppers, tomatoes and warm halloumi slices around the bowl. Make sure you add any juices left in the tomato salad bowl.
Then top with the olives, tzatziki and a lemon slice, if liked.
Top Tip
If making your own tzatziki, start the process whilst the rice is soaking.
Turn This Greek Rice Bowl Into A Feast
Instead of making a Greek rice nourish bowl, you can take the separate elements, up the quantities then serve it as a Greek based feast or meze. Serve everything in separate bowls so that people can help themselves. Just add flatbreads and maybe a Greek horiatiki salad.
If you really want to go to town, you could also add my recipe for gigantes plaki (Greek butter beans in tomato sauce) and / or this whipped feta dip. Other ideas include dolmades, spanakopita triangles and fasolakia (Greek green beans).
Other Nourish Bowl Recipes You Might Like
All of the following nourish bowls are plant-based, but all thoroughly satisfying, healthy and delicious. I do however, have several more bowl food recipes, but not all of them are vegan.
- Aubergine rice bowl
- Black bean curry bowl
- Black lentil bowl with chimichurri sauce
- Buddha’s delight
- Roasted romanesco buddha bowl
- Sushi bowl with garlic, ginger & chilli edamame
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this Greek rice bowl, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or tips for making vegetarian Greek food?
Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, tag me @choclette8 so I can see them.
For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?
If you’d like more rice recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Greek Rice Nourish Bowl. PIN IT
Greek Rice Bowl
Equipment
- microplane (affiliate link) optional
Ingredients
Greek Rice
- 130 g brown basmati rice or other long grain brown rice
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small onion or large shallot, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic finely grated
- ½ organic lemon zested and juiced + a couple of slices
- 1 pinch sea salt
- 300 ml water
- good grinding of black pepper
- 1 handful parsley finely chopped
Greek Tomato Salad
- 1 large salad tomato or two medium ones
- 2 spring onions (scallions) or 1 small red one
- 1 pinch dried oregano
- 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt (I used chilli salt)
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
Greek Fried Peppers
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 small onion sliced into half moons
- 1 large sweet pepper colour of choice, but maybe not red – sliced into slightly under 1 cm width sticks
- 1 clove garlic finely sliced into little matchsticks
- 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
The Rest
- 125 g halloumi
- 4 tbsp tzatziki
- 8 black olives Greek kalamata if you can get them
Instructions
Greek Rice
- Soak the rice in water for at least two hours. Give it a good rinse, then drain.130 g brown basmati rice
- Once the rice is draining, fry the onion or shallot in the oil over a moderate heat for 2-3 minutes or until it’s softened and translucent. You’ll need a small lidded pan for this.1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 1 small onion
- Add the garlic and stir, then add the rice and stir-fry for a minute or two. You want all of the rice grains coated in the garlicky oil.1 clove garlic
- Pour in the lemon juice and water, add the salt and stir. Bring the water to the boil, clamp the lid on the pan and simmer very gently for 25 minutes. Turn the heat off, but leave the pan in situ to steam for ten minutes before taking the lid off.1 pinch sea salt, 300 ml water
- Add the black pepper, lemon zest and parsley to the pan and fluff the rice up with a fork, mixing in the afore mentioned ingredients as you go.good grinding of black pepper, 1 handful parsley
- Serve straight away whilst still warm, though it’s also quite nice at room temperature too.
Greek Tomato Salad
- Whilst the rice is cooking, chop the tomato into bite-sized chunks and transfer to a small mixing bowl.1 large salad tomato
- Slice the spring onions finely, both the green parts and the white and add to the bowl.2 spring onions (scallions)
- Sprinkle the salt and oregano over the tomatoes, then drizzle the olive oil over the top.1 pinch dried oregano, 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt, 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- Mix everything together and leave to marinade for twenty minutes or so. The rice will absorb any excess juices.
Greek Fried Peppers
- Whilst the tomato is marinading make the peppers.
- Using a frying pan, fry the onions in the oil over a moderate heat for 2-3 minutes, until translucent.2 tsp extra virgin olive oil, 1 small onion
- Add the peppers and continue to fry for a further five minutes when they should be starting to soften. Give an occasional stir.1 large sweet pepper
- Add the garlic and salt and stir-fry for a further 3 minutes. The garlic should be golden, but not burnt and the peppers tender, but still with a good bite to them.1 clove garlic
- Serve warm from the pan.
Greek Rice Bowl
- Whilst the peppers are frying, slice the halloumi into six long (or twelve shorter) thin pieces. Dry fry, griddle or air fry for 3 minutes on either side or until golden.125 g halloumi
- Divide the rice between two bowls. Then distribute the warm peppers, tomatoes and warm halloumi slices around the bowl. Then top with the olives, tzatziki and a lemon slice, if liked.4 tbsp tzatziki, 8 black olives
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
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Your lemon rice bowl looks delicious, and eating with our eyes is so important. Such a healthy bowl. how exciting though being invited to a Medieval wedding . Hope you have a great time. Love the invitations. best, Pauline(Happy Retirees Kitchen.)
Thank you Pauline. A medieval wedding is a definite first for me. It’s in Ireland too, so a bit of an adventure.
This is a lovely bowl of delicious food.
Thanks Choclette:))
Thank you Mary. I can indeed attest, this Greek rice bowl is quite delicious.
Yamas! Greek food is so delicious. Tzatsiki is one of my favourites. So easy to make. This looks great. I must try it again – before winter arrives.
Yes indeed, you’d better get too it. A Greek rice bowl just doesn’t seem right for winter.