How To Make Sweetgreen Crispy Rice

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Where is your level of Sweetgreen Fandom at? Information technology seems like people either can't live without information technology or don't know or intendance about it at all. I am in the third saucepan, I love Sweetgreen, simply the nearest one is approximately 875 miles from me. I know…. So deplorable. Until they open ane upwardly in my farm boondocks, I am making do with these make-at-home Sweetgreen copycat bowls. Let me teach yous how I brand them!

Even if you have a Sweetgreen nearby, the cost of their bowls can add up quickly if yous are ordering one for lunch or dinner each day. At $14 a bowl, that is $70 a calendar week for v bowls. That's a lot! So, making these at home tin can save you some money and still allow you to have a bougie basin that makes your life complete!

What makes Sweetgreen so slap-up?

Sweetgreen prides itself on uber-healthy, locally sourced, and socially responsible ingredients. When you consume a bowl from Sweetgreen, you can experience proficient about the food you are putting into your body.

Plus, their food tastes neat. Sweetgreen salad and bowls consist of multiple different components, which is why information technology feels so hard to make at home. If you were to make a bowl from scratch, with ten ingredients like the Elote Bowl has, you would need over an hr to get everything prepared, cooked, and assembled. That's not viable for my lunchtime!

How to make a Sweetgreen Copycat Bowl or Salad.

Each of Sweetgreen's menu items contains a large number of individual ingredients, which is why they feel so complicated to make. In their fall carte du jour, each of their bowls has between 8 and eleven unique ingredients included.

It sounds complicated, but many of the ingredients can exist fabricated ahead or you can use the freezer or other shortcuts to keep them on hand for you to whip upwardly a bowl anytime. Let's dive into the ingredient categories they use.

Greens

The greens are the foundation of either a bowl or salad. Sweetgreen offers a selection of arugula, shredded kale, jump mix, chopped romaine, or baby spinach.

All of these are piece of cake to pick up a pre-washed bundle at the grocery store. I buy 1 big container each week and rotate through spring mix and arugula, with an occasional bundle of kale thrown in. Buy what yous honey and become started on your Sweetgreen Copycat lunch!

Warm grain

Sweetgreen offers quinoa, wild rice, or black lentils with many of their bowls.

If you lot are merely here for the salads, you tin skip this part! I personally love the Sweetgreen grain bowls. The extra whole grain adds a density to lunch that you don't become from only salad mix.

However, the grains are part of why making a bowl from scratch takes a while. They need to melt first. So, there are a few shortcuts yous can use to speed this upwardly.

Freeze cooked quinoa, wild rice, or brown rice in single scoops, and just microwave it when you lot are set up. This can be a great utilise for leftovers or make a double or triple batch the next fourth dimension you make it for dinner and freeze the residual in single servings.
Use a ninety-second microwave rice package that contains whole grains, like these from Uncle Ben'southward or Seeds of Modify.

Protein

Sweetgreen offers several different protein choices including roasted or blackened craven, roasted sesame tofu, roasted steelhead fish, and hard-boiled egg.

The protein is key to keeping you lot full for the afternoon and is as well i of the most time-consuming parts of creating a basin or salad. The key to making this simple is to pair cooking the proteins with your dinner and utilise the freezer to assist ingredients last longer.

A few shortcuts to speed this role up can be:

Use leftover meat from dinner as the protein on a bowl or salad. Exist creative with new fun toppings and dressings to go with the flavor of the meat!
Cook extra meat, dice it up and freeze in single-serving packages every bit we did with the grain. Then it is easy to just grab a serving out and microwave.
Cull a quick-cooking protein like shrimp, halloumi, or tofu that can be sauteed on the stovetop in about 5 minutes.

Warm veggie

This warm or cooked veggie is oft a star of the show. Sweetgreen offers veggies like curry roasted cauliflower, spicy roasted broccoli, roasted brussels sprouts, roasted mushrooms, roasted sweetness potatoes, or roasted corn and peppers. Hmm, are you noticing a roasting theme hither?

I love roasted veggies, I brand them for dinner a couple of times a week. My play tricks for these is to make extra and employ leftovers on your bowl. This is a great way to use up leftovers and ensure you lot are eating a varied nutrition with many dissimilar nutritious veggies to ensure y'all get a broad multifariousness of nutrients.

Even if y'all don't take roasted veggies with dinner, information technology is easy to accept a single sheet pan and roast a variety of veggies on it so you have a diverseness for your bowls this week. Just have a minute to google roasting and the type of veggie and y'all will have the time and temp to get started. I usually simply season it with olive oil, salt, and pepper when I cook them. So if I desire to add an extra flavor like curry, or ruby-red pepper flakes I can do so when I reheat them for my bowl. That mode I take non committed to a flavor ahead of fourth dimension in case my mood changes!

Common cold veggie (usually 2-3)

Sweetgreen commonly offers a couple of different common cold veggies for an extra crunch and burst of nutrition. This could be anything from shredded cabbage, tomatoes, herbs similar cilantro or basil, carrots, cucumbers, or avocado.

This is actually where your preferences first to kick in. What things do you love on your bowls? Pick up some of those when you are at the store each week. Many of these things can be used in other areas of your cooking likewise and so you don't have to eat an entire container of tomatoes in a week only on Sweetgreen copycat bowls.

A few tips and tricks for these:

If you similar cabbage, look for shredded coleslaw cabbage bags in the salad section then you don't have to shred them yourself.
Utilize what you lot need from a veggie item then store information technology properly in the fridge for the side by side time. I tin shred half a carrot and then wrap in saran wrap and store it for tomorrow when I volition shred the residuum for my bowl.
If the veggie is sturdy, wash and chop it when you buy it so information technology is ready to be added to the bowl. I find I will skip calculation things I bought if I have to chop them while I am hungry and preparing the bowl. This just leads to nutrient waste matter which we are trying to avert.

Topping (normally 2-3)

Almost done! Sweetgreen adds a couple of fun toppings to each of its bowls like diced apple, croutons, tortilla chips, caprine animal cheese, lime clasp, parmesan cheese, crispy rice, toasted almonds, and spicy sunflower seeds.

Many of these are things you can buy or make ahead of fourth dimension and have on manus to include in your bowls. Don't be afraid to see if some of them can freeze (similar nuts, seeds, and cheeses) to help them final longer.

Some of these toppings are higher in calories so make sure you lot utilise them sparingly or pair them with a depression-calorie partner like combining apples and goat cheese.

I dear a splash of lime on my bowls, but don't always accept lime on hand. I bought a small canteen of lime juice that I go along in the fridge. Information technology's not equally vivid as fresh lime but does work in a pinch when I am low on supplies and lasts in the fridge for months.

Discover your favorites and and then mix things upward occasionally with new ideas from Sweetgreen's menu.

Dressing/sauce

Yay! We are at the piece de resistance! The dressing is the final flourish to whatever basin or salad and Sweetgreen has some fabled ones! Their listing includes jalapeno vinaigrette, peppercorn tahini, cranberry maple vinaigrette, miso sesame ginger, balsamic vinaigrette, spicy cashew, and their famous Green Goddess dressing.

One of the keys to Sweetgreen bowls and salads is they are a calorie-conscious choice. This means their dressings need to be depression-calorie and packed with flavors from herbs and strong-flavored depression-calorie ingredients.

Sweetgreen uses hot sauce every bit an additional low-calorie flavor enhancer on some of their bowls. So grab your favorite Sriracha, Cholula, or buffalo sauce and add a splash for some extra flair!

Today there are a ton of low-calorie dressing choices available at the grocery store, so spend some time browsing the next fourth dimension you lot are in that location and grab one or two to try. If you lot would rather make your own dressings, in that location are a bunch of Sweetgreen Copycat recipes for their dressings available. Hither are a few of my favorites:

Green Goddess Ranch
Spicy Cashew
Lime Jalapeno Vinaigrette

If your favorite dressing isn't on the list, just search for information technology on Google with the words "Sweetgreen Copycat" and you volition notice it. There are a ton of copycats out at that place!

Boosted tips and tricks!

Utilize the Sweetgreen carte as inspiration! No need to eat the same basin over and over again. Mix information technology up with new bowls and seasonal inspiration from their own menu.
Brand substitutions. These are your bowls, so put things you similar and can easily get into them! In the Back-scratch Cauliflower Bowl, they include raisins. Information technology was weird the first time I had it. The second time, I substituted chopped apples and LOVED information technology! Then don't be afraid to substitute what you like better or have on paw and you may observe a new fav!
Cut and dice things to be the aforementioned size, I adopt smaller then I can get multiple different ingredients in ane bite!

If you need some inspiration to get started, here are some copycat recipes for specific bowls that I take used and enjoyed in the past.

The OG (and 1 of my faves!) Harvest Bowl
A former menu particular, the Falafel Salad
A fresh and festive Corn Elote Bowl
The classic Kale Caesar Salad
A light Guacamole Greens salad
The Thai Salad that everyone loved before it left the menu
The Shroomami Bowl for all of the mushroom lovers out there!

How can making Sweetgreen Copycat bowls save me coin?

Revisit the math I did above. For five bowls a week, you are spending $70 a week, which is $280 in a four-calendar week month! That is more than I spend on groceries for the entire month, merely to have less than ⅓ of my meals from Sweetgreen.

By making a few bowls a week at abode, you tin cutting the cost downwards to around $5 per bowl and then use the money saved to save for retirement or pay down debt.

I am not advocating that a repast out (or delivered in) from Sweetgreen or another bougie salad identify is a bad choice. If information technology is something you love, then treat yourself occasionally! Every fourth dimension I travel, I run into if there is one in an area near me, and make a point to pick up a bowl (The Harvest or Curry Cauliflower Bowls are my FAVES!)

It's a matter of being intentional with your spending so that y'all are not mindlessly spending $70 a calendar week on bowls without getting the enjoyment and value from your spending.

And so, what basin or salad are you lot going to make first?

I remember I am going to work on recreating the Curry Cauliflower bowl. That back-scratch roasted cauliflower they apply is fabulous and then elementary to brand! Olive oil, curry powder, and cauliflower florets roasted at 425 degrees for 25 minutes. Smash! The best office of that bowl is done!

Practise y'all have a favorite Sweetgreen copycat recipe or hack? I would love to hear about it! Share or link to the recipe in the comment below or over on our Instagram page!