Making a KYN bowl is such a great way to check all the boxes on your nutritional needs in a meal. It is delicious and FULL of flavor, but it’s also nutritionally balanced so you don't have to worry about missing out on important nutrients. Here we share with you how we balance a meal whether in a bowl or on a plate and then we guide you through our process of building out a KYN bowl, keeping these fundamentals in mind.

BALANCING A MEAL

To balance a meal we always include FIBRE (which is often the carbohydrate, these foods fill us up and give us energy) - vegetables and grains (think roughage), FAT (healthy fats satiate our appetite and also make everything taste GOOD) nuts, seeds, dressings, and PROTEIN (plant or animal sources for energy and to build and maintain our body) - nuts, seeds, legumes, egg, fish, chicken, and red meat.

BUILDING A BOWL

BASE - 1st layer of the bowl

Base grain - quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, buckwheat, teff, amaranth (GF grains), or farro, barley, kamut - whole grains with the fibre still intact - these are grains that have not been processed and refined. Think WHOLE FOODS.

*If you are living life GRAIN-FREE - you could try making cauliflower rice as your base 🙂

Greens - choose your leafy greens to add to the base - this is a great opportunity to add chlorophyll-rich green vegetables into a meal. Kale, spinach, arugula, collard greens, and beet leaves are all examples of leafy greens.

Chlorophyll - known as 'nature’s healer', is a phytonutrient found in green plants that helps to cleanse and detoxify the blood and liver, aids in digestion, and helps balance blood sugar.

VEGETABLES - 2nd layer

A mix of roasted vegetables of your choice and some raw vegetables. We like roasting squash/pumpkin/sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower, purple cabbage, peppers, and also including, raw cucumber, peppers, and shredded carrot.

Including a variety of colorful vegetables will ensure that you are consuming, not only the full spectrum of vitamins and minerals but also many PHYTO-NUTRIENTS, which are like little boosters in our food (found in a variety of colors like red, green, orange, purple, yellow) - chemical compounds that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in our body.

And more FIBER! Our veggies deposit so much nutrition into our body and then the parts of the plants that cannot be absorbed act like a broom, gently sweeping through the colon, scooping up any excess waste products, cholesterol, and plaque, and forming what we know as POOP, and out it comes! Basically, fiber keeps our pipes clean.

TOPPERS - 3rd layer

This is usually the obvious protein, so something like marinated legumes, baked tempeh or tofu, an egg, chicken, fish, or whatever well-sourced protein you prefer.

Protein acts as the building blocks of our body from a cellular level. It builds our blood, muscles, skin, hair, nails, and gives us energy and fuel to move through our day, and is necessary to maintain and support our overall health.

Garnish - this is another topper we include and can be fresh chopped herbs for flavor, nut and seed mixtures, hemp seeds, and/or fresh sprouts.

DRESSINGS - 4th layer

We bring special attention to this component of the meal because as long as the dressing is tasty, the bowl is going to be a hit! It really pulls all the flavors and textures together by adding this creamy, fat-fueled mixture to the bowl. This is always a good opportunity to add in those healthy fats like a nut or seed butter, an oil, or even something like an avocado-based dressing. These healthy fats satiate us and also nourish our nervous system and brain.

We are including our Thai Peanut Dressing which is a NUT base, with additional ingredients like water to thin and bulk the recipe, maple syrup, ACV, and tamari (sweet, sour, salty) to help balance the flavor, and fresh, anti-oxidant and immune-supportive herbs like garlic and ginger to both add nutrition and delicious flavor.

*Added tip - we like to mix some dressings into the base to make sure the flavor is throughout the bowl and at the end, we also drizzle it over top of all the ingredients.

The only other thing to know is: Sit down, relax and enjoy eating your meal, slowly - one delicious bite at a time, chewing everything really well to help aid your digestion and to also help cue your satiety or 'fullness' feeling so that you don't overeat and feel uncomfortable. 🙂 Bon appetite!

The KYN Bowl RECIPE

For the bowl:

3/4 cup of quinoa (or grain of your choice), cooked

1 cup spinach or arugula, chopped

½ cup roasted sweet potato cubes

½ cup roasted broccoli

¼ cup roasted red pepper

½ cup shredded purple cabbage, massaged

¼ cup edamame peas, cooked

¼ cup fresh cilantro or basil, chopped

1 Tbsp spring onion, chopped

2 Tbsp seed sprinkle * (KYN recipe)

For the dressing:

(makes 1.5 cups)

¾ cup natural, unsweetened peanut butter

2 tbsp ginger, juiced, or 1-2 tsp powder

1 clove garlic

2 tbsp maple syrup

Pinch cayenne pepper

1 tbsp tamari

Pinch sea salt

½ - ¾ cup water (you may have to add more or less for the desired consistency for drizzling over the bowl)

Instructions:

Make your dressing by combining all ingredients in a blender and blending until smooth and creamy. If you have a condiment squirt bottle, add your dressing to the bottle for easy drizzling. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the quinoa with the chopped leafy greens and the shredded cabbage. Drizzle the mixture with some dressing and mix it all together. Add mixture to your serving bowl and add the roasted sweet potato cubes, the roasted broccoli, the roasted red pepper, and the edamame. Drizzle your bowl with more dressing and then top it off with the spring onion, seed sprinkle, and fresh herbs. Enjoy this beautiful and colorful meal!

Building a KYN Bowl

Recipe