I bought America’s Test Kitchen’s Bowls: Vibrant Recipes with Endless Possibilities in early 2020, before the world came to a halt, and it’s been an inspiration to me ever since.
I’m convinced that all the best foods—soups, stir fry, burritos, salads—come in bowls. This book proves my theory. Chock full of different categories of bowl recipes evoking cuisines from around the world, Bowls is one of those cookbooks I’ve returned to time and time again for fast and flavor-packed meals with plenty of variety.
You know how there are just some cookbooks in your library that you turn to first? This is one of them.
Choosing a few recipes for this blog post feels like I’m only scratching the surface, and, honestly, I just picked what sounded good that week. (I’d just had a feast at my favorite nearby Mexican restaurant when I picked these meals, which is why I didn’t even come close to the delicious Latin American-inspired takes in this book.)
You’ll be seeing more from Bowls in the future, but hey, we have to start somewhere, and this is what I picked for the week.
chicken chow mein bowl
Quick. Easy. Flavorful. Makes for excellent leftovers. What’s not to love? This meal was the MVP of the week!
When you make the Chicken Chow Mein Bowl, please don’t skimp on the fresh Chinese noodles or the shiitake mushrooms. Go to an Asian grocer if you can’t find these things in your regular store! The recipe says you can opt for angel hair pasta instead of fresh Chinese noodles, but the toothsome noodle texture is vital to this dish (I can’t imagine it with Italian-style pasta).
I’m slowly trying to build a collection of recipes I can make with little effort on nights when I wish I could just buy takeout, and this one goes right to the top of the list. It’s just as delicious as an order of chicken chow mein I can get at a local restaurant.
The recipe specifies how much pepper to add to the sauce. My tip? Use white pepper instead of black pepper for a perfect level of heat.
That’s it for this recipe. It looks simple but delivers (without you having to tip the driver). I’m already craving it again.
moroccan chicken salad bowl
The Moroccan Chicken Salad Bowl is such a delightful mix of flavors and textures, with relatively simple ingredients and prep. I love the warming garam masala and coriander vinaigrette with the parsley, chicken, and apricots.
Even my husband, who isn’t a fan of chickpeas and dried apricots the way I am, ate his entire serving.
I appreciate the recipe writers’ instructions to toss the greens and shallots with half of the dressing before plating the salad and topping with the chicken, chickpeas, and apricots. In my haste to put together a salad, I often skip this step, or I try to toss everything together in a big bowl and plate the whole thing, which ends up pretty uneven. The “toss with half the dressing” method achieves excellent coverage, and I need to remember to do that for all salads.
This dish makes me want to do a deep dive into Moroccan cooking. Surprisingly, I don’t own a Moroccan cookbook—yet. Time to start my search!
pantry chickpea bowl
The name isn’t an exciting one, but the flavor profile of the Pantry Chickpea Bowl is straight out of my college years!
When I just needed to feed myself and didn’t have any other plans, I’d sauté spinach and garlic in olive oil, add some chopped sun-dried tomatoes (or whatever else was around), and throw a fried egg on top. Dump in some canned chickpeas, and you pretty much have this recipe. I knew I’d have to try America’s Test Kitchen’s take on this old favorite.
I had some purple kale to use up, so I opted for that instead of spinach. Massage your kale, people! I thought I did, but I didn’t enough, and it could have been a whole lot better. (Or, just use spinach like the recipe directs.)
The yogurt sauce was more of a dollop situation than a drizzle situation (I likely used a thicker yogurt than the test cooks), but it complemented the bowl quite well alongside the chopped pistachios.
On the subject of meals made better with lived experience, I have to throw in a shout-out to America’s Test Kitchen here for the quality of the back-of-the-book basic recipes. I guess I’d never followed actual instructions for frying a sunny-side-up egg before now (what? I know), and the basic recipe in this book gave me the most gorgeous, photograph-worthy fried egg I’ve ever made. I also followed the book’s basic recipe for seared chicken breasts when I made the Moroccan Chicken Salad Bowl, and I’m convinced there is no need for another basic seared chicken breast recipe in my life now that I know this method. Brava, ATK!
kimchi beef-noodle soup
I opted to make the Kimchi Beef-Noodle Soup because I like kimchi, and it seemed like an easy, weeknight, Korean-ish take on pho.
This recipe relies on your kimchi (whether homemade or store-bought, like mine) to have lots of brine, which you measure into the broth. My kimchi was rather dry, as it turns out; I had to work for that brine, and I still didn’t have enough for the broth.
In all, this recipe would have benefited from more broth and less noodles for better balance. That being said, the flavors were there, and we ate this soup until we got full! It seemed like I’d need to bulk up the dish a bit, which is why I added cubed tofu, but with the rice noodles, there was plenty to eat.
I’d absolutely try this soup again, with a more deeply flavored (and more abundant) beef broth. Use the good stuff when you make this soup! This isn’t a recipe where bouillon or boxed broths do justice.
. . . . . . .
Bowls is a cookbook that highlights the variety of flavor profiles, textures, and serving styles that all fall under the category of things you can serve in a bowl.
There aren’t a lot of complex, hours-long affairs in this book, which makes it vital that you select the highest quality ingredients (vegetables, broths, noodles, etc.) you can get your hands on. I love the modular, customizable nature of the recipes that the America’s Test Kitchen editors built into this book, and I have relied on it for weeknight dinner inspiration for years.
Bowls: Vibrant Recipes with Endless Possibilities, America’s Test Kitchen. December 17, 2019, America’s Test Kitchen.