grain bowl

noun

plural grain bowls

: a dish typically consisting of an individual portion of a cooked grain (such as rice, quinoa, or farro) served in a bowl with accompaniments such as vegetables, beans, meat or fish, and sauce

Like many cooks I know, I don't always follow recipes for grain bowls at home. Instead, I tend to use up what I have in the fridge and pantry, mixing and matching, figuring out how to make odds and ends delicious.

—Tejal Rao

Arrange, don't mix. Part of a grain bowl's appeal is the visual distinctiveness of its various parts—toss it all together, and it's no longer eye candy.

—Carrie Dennett

Examples of grain bowl in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When making the switch to a plant-forward diet, Moon advised easing into it with small changes such as adding leafy greens to smoothies, using tofu in a grain bowl, and substituting animal fats for olive oil. —Sarah Garone, Health, 27 Aug. 2025

Salads and grain bowls are great recipes for adding nutrient boosters like chia seeds. —Sohaib Imtiaz, Verywell Health, 20 Aug. 2025

Try swapping salmon for chickpeas in a grain bowl or replacing spinach with roasted Brussels sprouts. —Lauryn Higgins, Time, 13 Aug. 2025

The restaurant offers plenty of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options including salads ($10 to $15), grain bowls ($11 to $16) and protein-forward entrées (around $15). —Bradley Hohulin, IndyStar, 2 July 2025

Word History

First Known Use

2000, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for grain bowl

• bankroll
• bedroll
• borehole
• cajole
• catchpole
• charcoal
• condole
• control
• dipole
• downhole
• enroll
• extol