14 Hearty Rice Bowl Recipes for Comforting Weeknight Dinners

Oyakodon, in a white ceramic bowl alongside wooden chopsticks, a small ceramic bowl holding togarashi seasoning, and an additional bowl of oyakodon off to the left side. — Serious Eats / Qi Ai

When I first moved to New York City, I pretty much lived on rice bowls. It's not just that they were easy to prepare, though that definitely didn't hurt. These simple bowls of porridge, protein over rice, and perfectly balanced curry were just the thing when I was feeling homesick or couldn't find the energy to produce a feast in seven courses.

Now that I'm more settled into my life here, I still lean heavily on these dishes. They're so delicious, and they allow me to pull off fantastically flavorful and comforting meals, even when I'm feeling too lazy to leave my apartment. We have some very strong feelings about how to build a perfect rice bowl. With these 14 rice bowls in rotation, you're never too far from a home-cooked meal—even on your laziest day.

Galinhada Mineira (Brazilian Chicken and Rice From Minas Gerais)

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

This deeply comforting, one-pot meal of chicken and rice is chock full of peas, carrots, and plenty of garlic and onion. This is a truly simple and comforting chicken-and-rice dish, and success lies in properly developing and layering flavors: browning the chicken well, blooming spices in oil, and ensuring even seasoning of salt throughout the dish.

Galinhada Mineira (Brazilian Chicken and Rice From Minas Gerais)
Homestyle Bibimbap

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

An assortment of banchan (side dishes), a dollop of gochujang, and a drizzle of sesame oil makes this homestyle bibimbap a favorite in Korea. Cooking and seasoning the toppings separately ensures each has an ideal final texture and flavor.

Homestyle Bibimbap
Katsudon (Japanese Chicken or Pork Cutlet and Egg Rice Bowl)

Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

To those not familiar, simmering crisp-shelled fried chicken in flavorful broth might seem like a confusing cooking method. You'll just have to reserve judgment until you try it for yourself. To make this katsudon, leftover chicken katsu or pork tonkatsu is simmered with eggs in a soy-dashi broth and served over rice. While the crust doesn't remain particularly crisp, the breading soaks up tons of flavor from the cooking liquid.

Katsudon (Japanese Chicken or Pork Cutlet and Egg Rice Bowl)
Homemade Japanese Curry Rice (Kare Raisu)

Vicky Wasik

Japanese curry (or kare, as it's called in Japan) is one of the country's most popular comfort foods, and for good reason. While most versions of this classic dish start from a package, we build the dish from scratch. You'll get all the traditional flavors, plus juicy pieces of chicken, tender bits of carrot, sweet peas, and silky chunks of potato.

Homemade Japanese Curry Rice (Kare Raisu)

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Oyakodon (Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl)

Serious Eats / Qi Ai

This chicken and egg rice bowl is one of my favorite dishes. Pieces of chicken are simmered in a soy sauce and sake mixture, and then scrambled eggs are poured directly into the simmering liquid. When the chicken is tender and the eggs are cooked and fluffy, the combination is slid onto a bowl of rice. It really doesn't get much easier than this.

Oyakodon (Japanese Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl)
Gyudon (Japanese Simmered Beef and Rice Bowls)

J. Kenji López-Alt

If you like oyakodon, chances are you'll love gyudon. Translucent onions are simmered with thin slices of beef in a mixture of soy sauce, dashi, and sake. The beef is finished with freshly grated ginger, and the rice bowl is topped with a poached egg.

Gyudon (Japanese Simmered Beef and Rice Bowls)
Bengali Rice Porridge With Lentils and Chicken

Vicky Wasik

This Bengali rice porridge is about as comforting as any food can be. Aromatic jasmine rice and hearty, earthy lentils are simmered in chicken stock with fresh turmeric, ginger, and red chile. Once the fragrant grains become tender, potatoes and chicken thighs are added to the pot. The porridge—already bursting with flavor and color—gets finished off with a bright cilantro chutney and bits of crisp fried shallots.

Bengali Rice Porridge With Lentils and Chicken
Easy Teriyaki-Glazed Salmon, Cucumber, and Avocado Rice Bowls

J. Kenji López-Alt

I hate the idea of cooking hacks. Often, those get-it-done-faster tips cut corners and ignore important steps. But keeping some homemade teriyaki sauce on hand at all times really is a cooking hack. It allows you to whip up all sorts of flavorful meals in no time. Take, for instance, this teriyaki-glazed salmon. In the time it'll take you to steam a pot of rice, you'll be able to sear the salmon, cut up some avocado and cucumber, slice a couple scallions, and grab that magical teriyaki from the fridge.

Easy Teriyaki-Glazed Salmon, Cucumber, and Avocado Rice Bowls

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Ikura Don (Japanese Rice Bowl With Salmon Roe)

Vicky Wasik

This extremely simple rice bowl consists of short-grain rice topped with pearls of brilliant orange salmon roe. The already-cured roe gets quickly marinated in soy sauce and other seasonings to bump up its intensity even more before it's loaded onto the rice and finished with a garnish of wasabi, nori strips, and a shiso leaf.

Ikura Don (Japanese Rice Bowl With Salmon Roe)
Tamago Kake Gohan (Japanese-Style Rice With Egg)

J. Kenji López-Alt

Tamago gohan (literally "egg rice") is the simplest Japanese comfort food. Start with a bowl of hot rice, and break an egg into it. As the egg slowly cooks into the rice, the bowl is seasoned with a bit of soy sauce, a pinch of salt, and a light shake of Aji-no-moto, a Japanese brand of pure powdered MSG.

Tamago Kake Gohan (Japanese-Style Rice With Egg)
Beefsteak Donburi (Japanese Rice Bowl) With Spinach

Vicky Wasik

This Japanese donburi features fluffy rice, thin slices of juicy rib-eye steak, garlicky sautéed spinach, and a salty-sweet sauce. The whole dish comes together in one pan (plus whatever vessel you use to cook the rice) in 30 minutes.

Beefsteak Donburi (Japanese Rice Bowl) With Spinach
Chicken Donburi (Japanese Rice Bowl) With Spinach

Vicky Wasik

If you've given the beefsteak donburi a try and want to test out another iteration of the dish, or if steak just isn't for you, this chicken donburi is an equally delicious option. We weigh the chicken down while it cooks, which ensures the skin gets nice and crisp, and top off the bowl with plenty of bright, fresh ingredients like nori, sliced scallions, pickled ginger, and an egg yolk.

Chicken Donburi (Japanese Rice Bowl) With Spinach

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Eggplant Rice Bowl (Donburi)

Vicky Wasik

This vegetarian rice bowl is loaded with savory braised eggplant, stir-fried vegetables, and crunchy quick-pickled cucumber. The same liquid that's used to rehydrate shiitake mushrooms for the stir-fry is repurposed as a base for the eggplant braising sauce. Little tricks like this squeeze the most out of every ingredient, so you won't miss flavor-enhancers like chicken stock or dashi at all.

Eggplant Rice Bowl (Donburi)
Korean Chicken and Rice Porridge (Dak Juk)

Vicky Wasik

You'll have a hard time finding a dish more comforting and warming than dak juk, a Korean rice and chicken porridge. You'll start by poaching a whole chicken, until it's tender and flavorful. The poaching liquid is then used to cook rice, carrot, onion, and zucchini until the soft grains break apart and the broth has thickened. To finish, the tender chicken is added back into the glossy porridge, and each bowl is garnished with sesame seeds and scallion greens.

Korean Chicken and Rice Porridge (Dak Juk)

March 2019

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14 Hearty Rice Bowl Recipes for Comforting Weeknight Dinners

March 2019

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