Chicken Burrito Bowl with Black Beans and Avocado

Four lunches from one tray of spiced chicken and peppers. Cook the chicken in large pieces and slice it after it rests; small cubes dry out long before they brown.

Lunch

Serves 4

Chicken burrito bowl with brown rice, black beans, sliced chicken, peppers, tomatoes, avocado and lime

Ingredients

500g skinless chicken breasts or thigh fillets
200g brown basmati rice
1 tin (400g) black beans, drained and rinsed
2 red peppers, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp dried oregano, a pinch of chilli flakes
200g cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 ripe avocado
1 lime
A handful of coriander, chopped
120g fat-free Greek yogurt, instead of soured cream

Method

Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan). Put the rice on to cook according to the packet.
Mix the spices with the oil and a pinch of salt. Toss the peppers and onion in half of it and spread them on a large baking tray. Rub the rest over the chicken and nestle it among the vegetables, whole, not diced.
Roast for 18 to 20 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through with no pink in the middle and the juices run clear. Leave it to rest for five minutes, then slice it.
While it roasts, warm the black beans in a small pan with a squeeze of lime, and toss the tomatoes with the coriander and a little more lime juice.
Slice the avocado only when you are about to eat, and squeeze lime over it.
Divide the rice between four bowls or boxes and top with the beans, chicken, vegetables, tomatoes and a spoonful of yogurt. If you are packing lunches, read the note on rice below.

Why it works

A burrito bowl is a burrito without the tortilla, which removes about 300 calories of refined flour and leaves everything that was worth eating. This one carries 44g of protein and about 10g of fibre a serving.

The fibre is the part most people are short of. UK guidance is 30g a day, and most adults eat around 20g. Black beans and brown rice do most of the work here, and fibre with protein at lunch keeps blood sugar steadier through the afternoon than a sandwich of the same calories. More in does sugar lower testosterone?

The rice rule for meal prep. Cooked rice can carry spores of a bacterium, Bacillus cereus, that survive cooking and multiply if the rice sits warm. The Food Standards Agency advice is to cool rice quickly, keep it in the fridge for no more than a day, and reheat it only once, until it is steaming hot all the way through. So the chicken, beans and vegetables keep for three days, but the rice does not. Either cook it fresh, or freeze it in portions as soon as it has cooled and reheat it from frozen.

Avocado brings most of the fat, and it is the kind that does not need limiting, but it browns once cut. Add it on the day, or pack half with the stone in and lime on the cut face.

Greek yogurt in place of soured cream adds protein and saves fat, and with the lime and spices it tastes the same in a bowl. For another high-protein lunch, see the tuna and white bean salad, and for a vegetarian version of these flavours, the black bean chilli works with the beef left out.

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