Meow Recipes: Buffalo Chicken Bowls with Cauliflower Garlic Rice

Buffalo chicken bowls in meal prep containers.

This post is sponsored by ALDI

Please imagine this:

Spicy-puckery buffalo chicken, grilled to juicy perfection.
Served over fluffy rice speckled with roasted cauliflower bits and herbs.
Topped with a freshy-fresh little cucumber and tomato situation.
Dolloped with a spoonful of creamy dill dip.
And hungry you, at lunchtime, with this exciting little container of flavor fireworks awaiting you.

I mean, come on! It’s juicy, spicy, and cool and crunchy and almost comforting all at the same time. And the fact that this is an all-around feel-good with big flavor and a yummy mix of protein and fiber and carbs…

This is the energy we are bringing into the month of September.

Fresh, clean, big and bold, and just generally ON IT.

In This Post: Everything You Need For Buffalo Chicken Bowls

Best ALDI Ingredients for These Bowls
How to Make Buffalo Chicken
How to Make Cauliflower Garlic Rice
How to Store for Meal Prep
All About Toppings
FAQ About These Bowls

If You’re Not Already, You Should Be Shopping At ALDI

Here’s the deal. ALDI is a really important part of our weekly grocery situation at home for two reasons: 1) the products are good – like, GOOD good, and often organic! and 2) it saves us money.

We get so many of our basics from ALDI every week:

organic whole milk
organic produce
organic grains
organic yogurt

And if you’re not already shopping there, I just think that as we get into the fall times with back to school, making more regular grocery trips, getting back on the meal planning train, etc. – you’re going to want to be doing some weekly stock-ups.

Check out this post of 21 Things You Should Absolutely Be Buying at ALDI to get you started if you’re not sure. Or DM me on Instagram and I’ll send you the detailed receipts of all my weekly Instacart orders to ALDI so you can see what I’ve been mowing down on every week. (Kidding, sort of?)

Everything you need for this recipe can be found at ALDI – yay! – and some of the featured items would be their Simply Nature Organic Thin Sliced Chicken Breast Fillets (love that you can buy them already thinly sliced!), their frozen Season’s Choice Riced Cauliflower, their fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, their Park Street Deli Dill Dip, and their Simply Nature Organic White Rice.

How To Make Buffalo Chicken

There’s a lot of buffalo chicken in the world. This buffalo chicken is:

Marinated and grilled, not breaded and fried
Super super easy
Packed with flavor
Extra juicy
Golden and beautiful
Versatile and can go with just about everything.

To make the chicken, just marinate it with some pantry basics… and then grill it.

And if you’re like me you can just use a grill pan right on your stove and avoid the actual grill which isn’t hard but sometimes just feels hard, know what I mean?

Marinate and inside-grill. Easiest. Ever.

I prefer the thinly cut chicken breasts because they cook more quickly and evenly.

How To Make Cauliflower Garlic Rice

This might actually deserve its own post later on because it’s one of my new favorite ways to rice.

It’s really a hybrid regular rice and cauliflower rice:

You cook the rice.
You roast the cauliflower rice.
And then you combine the two.

They really do need each other, ya know? Like plain white rice on its own doesn’t have enough zazz, and cauliflower rice on its own leaves you a little carb-sad. So roasting the cauliflower rice to concentrate the flavor and get a little crispy browned texture, and then tossing it in with the regular rice to help it be more yummy and interesting? It is SUCH a win. Part veg, part carb, all-around texture and flavor winner.

Every time I make this rice, Bjork raves about it and my kids are all over it.

Buffalo chicken bowls in three meal prep containers.

How To Store This Buffalo Chicken

The chicken and the rice will store beautifully together in the fridge for a couple of days.

The veggies will prep well, too! But they should just stay in their own container so that they don’t have to be heated up when you reheat the individual portions.

I’d recommend storing the rice and chicken in individual containers, and then just keeping a side container for your toppers (the fresh veg and the dip).

Speaking Of Toppings

The dill dip is what I used here – because I am a sucker for the dill dip at ALDI. (Okay, fine, all their dips.)

But any store bought sauce you like that has some kind of creaminess would be great. Even just… ranch? If you wanted to go the homemade route I feel like either this magic green sauce or this jalapeño ranch would be really, really good.

All of this is weirdly getting me kind of excited for that September back-to-everything rush. Is this allowed? Can we be excited to pack up our little lunches and eat buffalo chicken and garlic cauliflower rice? Because that’s where I’m at.

Buffalo Chicken Bowls: Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the best way to store this for meal prep?

Store the chicken and rice together in the container, and the tomatoes, cucumber, and dill dip separate. After you’ve warmed the chicken and rice, add the rest of it on top!

How spicy is this?

On its own, the chicken has a bit of a kick! But when combined with everything else, it really tones it down. If you’re concerned about it being too spicy, feel free to reduce the amount of hot sauce.

How could I make this vegetarian?

Swap the chicken for buffalo cauliflower florets, buffalo tofu, or buffalo chickpeas.

Buffalo Chicken Bowls with Cauliflower Garlic Rice

Author: Lindsay
Total Time: 40 minutes
Yield: 4 servings

Print Recipe

Description

The ultimate meal prep: Buffalo Chicken Bowls! Spicy buffalo chicken, a fluffy rice and cauliflower rice combo, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, and a dollop of creamy dill dip.

Ingredients

Units

For the Chicken:

1 lb. Simply Nature Organic Thin Sliced Chicken Breast Fillets, pounded or cut in half lengthwise so they are flat and thin
1/4 cup Burman’s Hot Sauce
2 tablespoons Specially Selected Raw Honey
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
black pepper to taste

For the Rice:

1 cup Simply Nature Organic White Rice
1 package Season’s Choice Riced Cauliflower
1–2 tablespoons of Simply Nature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
salt to taste

For the Cucumber Salad:

cucumbers, sliced
cherry tomatoes, halved
Park Street Deli Dill Dip or avocado cilantro dressing

Instructions

Marinate Chicken: Place chicken, buffalo sauce, honey, garlic powder, paprika, salt, onion powder, and black pepper in a bowl or bag. Place in the fridge to marinate for 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Cook Rice: Cook rice according to package directions.
Roast Cauliflower: Place cauliflower rice on a sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast for 20-30 minutes until partially browned and a little roasty. Add roasted cauliflower rice to cooked rice. (Optional: season with garlic powder, lemon juice, parsley, or parmesan.)
Cook Chicken: Heat a grill pan over high heat. Add a little olive oil if needed, then add the marinated chicken pieces, discarding extra marinade. Cook for a few minutes on each side until nice and browned, and no longer pink on the inside. Remove from the pan and let rest for a few minutes.
Serve: Slice chicken and serve with a scoop of cauliflower rice. Top with sliced cucumber and tomato and a dollop of dill dip or ranch dressing. Yum!

Notes

Nutrition note: Nutrition label does not include dip or dressing.

If you want to make this as a meal prep recipe in individual containers, just package the rice and chicken together. Keep the cucumber, tomato, and dip separate, and add them after you heat up the individual servings.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Category: Lunch
Method: Stovetop
Cuisine: American