Falafel, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Bowls
Falafel, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Bowls make a hearty lunch or a light dinner. Whenever you choose to eat this dish it will be delicious! Get the recipe below.
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Bowls of goodness
It can be difficult to eat a healthy, balanced diet particularly when you’re vegan.
At lunchtime, I often find myself heading to the local store, grabbing something convenient to go. These grab and go lunches are usually highly processed and lacking key nutrients.
Making your own lunches means you can pack in more veggies and plenty of protein to make sure you’re getting more of a balanced diet.
This recipe starts with a layer of spinach. Spinach is one of the most nutrient dense vegetables and has all the benefits of being a leafy green veg.
Red onions are another nutrient dense veggie I add to these falafel bowls. As well as being packed full of vitamins they’re also full of essential minerals like potassium.
Next roasted sweet potato is piled on top, a vegetable that is high in both Vitamins A and C.
For protein and fibre I add black beans. Black beans can conveniently be bought pre-cooked in tins which means you can prep your meals even faster.
The falafel and tahini dressing are just he icing on the (healthy) cake!
Make ahead
One of my favourite things about this dish is that it can easily be made ahead.
Roasted sweet potato will last for 3 – 5 days in the fridge. A tin of black beans will also last for roughly 3 days in the fridge so you can box up a couple of days worth of lunches and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to eat.
Unlike some “meal prep” dishes, you don’t need to keep the ingredients separate until the last minute. The dressing is thick enough that it won’t make the spinach soggy so you can even store it with the dressing on top.
The recipe
If you want to make your own falafel for this recipe you can choose between my sesame crusted falafel or broad bean falafel. Let me know which one you choose!
Falafel, Sweet Potato and Black Bean Bowls
Ingredients
- 1 large sweet potato diced
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp dried mixed herbs
- 235 g black beans from a 400g tin, drained weight
- 200 g spinach
- 0.5 small red onion thinly sliced
- 6 falafel
- 4 tbsp tahini
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 0.5 lemon juice only
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 200C / 400F / gas mark 6.
- Place the sweet potato cubes on a baking tray and drizzle over the vegetable oil. Season with the salt and pepper and dried mixed herbs.
- Roast in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes or until tender.
- Layer the spinach, sweet potato, red onion and black beans in a bowl.
- Top with the falafel and red onion.
- To finish, mix the tahini, lemon juice and olive oil and drizzle over the dish.
Nutrition
More lunch recipes
For the full range of lunch recipes check out the lunch recipe collection here.