Dishing Up the Dirt

Hippie Bowls with Secret Sauce

Things are getting real. Our 2014 seeds have arrived at Tumbleweed Farm! Our wallets have shrunk but we are armed with enough seeds to get us through our upcoming season. Hopefully our CSA members, restaurant accounts, and farmers market customers will be satisfied. And since I am a huge fan of KALE we ordered extra seed this season!

Before we know it we will be setting up our farmers market stand once again. Time is flying. Yikes!

Thank god for big ol’ bowls of roasted veggies with creamy sauce. Food like this will fuel us for the upcoming season. I think it’s going to be a big year. Fingers crossed!

If you have ever eaten at a vegetarian restaurant you will most likely remember something on the menu referred to as “the hippie bowl.” It is usually a combination of roasted veggies, beans, greens and a “secret” sauce of some sort.  As it turns out, I pretty much eat a “hippie bowl” for dinner at least 3 times a week. As for the “secret” sauce I’ve decided to create my own and I’m really happy with the results. I don’t know about you all but I don’t like “secret” recipes. I feel like all recipes should be shared and enjoyed.  And this just so happens to be one of them!  A giant bowl of veggies with creamy sauce is pretty much heaven on earth for us. We like to pair this meal with a glass of red wine too. Everything in the winter tastes better with a glass of red wine am I right?

This isn’t really a recipe but more of a method. The “secret” sauce I have decided to call “hippie sauce” (due to the fact that there is nutritional yeast involved.) I could honestly drink this sauce with a spoon!  If you are in a dinner rut this is going to be your go-to weeknight meal. It’s healthy, delicious, and comes together in a pinch! Pour a glass of red and dig in.

Hippie Bowls with Secret Sauce

Prep Time: 15 mins.    Cook Time: 25 mins.    Serves: 2-4

  • 1 cup dry quinoa
  • 1 small sweet potato, scrubbed clean and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
  • 1 small head of broccoli, cut into small florets
  • 1 cup cooked chickpeas (if canned rinsed and drained)
  • 1 cup shredded purple cabbage
  • 1 cup shredded carrots
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup almonds, roughly chopped
  • 1 small avocado, diced
For the Sauce:
  • 1/4 cup tahini
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 TBS white wine vinegar
  • 2 tsp dijon style mustard
  • 2 tsp honey
  • 2 tsp sriracha hot sauce (or a pinch of cayenne pepper)
  • 3 TBS nutritional yeast 
  • salt to taste

Preparation

  1. Preheat the oven to 425.
  2. In a large bowl combine the sweet potato, broccoli and chickpeas. Toss with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Place on a prepared baking sheet and roast in the oven until lightly browned on all sides (about 20 minutes). Toss veggies hallway through cooking time.
  3. While veggies roast cook the quinoa. Combine 1 cup of quinoa with two cups of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook until liquid has evaporated and quinoa can easily be fluffed with a fork. About 15 minutes.
  4. Prepare the "hippie sauce" by combing all ingredients and processing until smooth with an immersion blender or regular blender (a hand whisk will work too, just put a LOT of muscle into it!)
  5. Once veggies are done roasting toss them with the cooked quinoa. Add the shredded cabbage, carrots, avocado, raisins and almonds. Drizzle with creamy sauce and serve warm.

Notes

Use this recipe as a guide. Adjust measurements and ingredients as necessary.


Leave a Reply

63 thoughts on “Hippie Bowls with Secret Sauce

  1. Joanne says:

    No thanks to secret recipes but YES to this big bowl of veggies with a delicious “hippie” sauce! This is totally my kind of meal!

    1. Andrea says:

      Cheers to not having “secrete” sauces!

  2. This sounds fantastic for dinner! I think I will make it! Thanks 🙂

    1. Andrea says:

      You’re welcome my friend!

  3. Your hippie sauce sounds wonderful, can’t wait to give a version of this dish a try!! So glad I found your blog, I absolutely LOVE all of your recipes!!

    1. Andrea says:

      Thank you SO much for the lovely comment! I’m so happy you found the blog the too 🙂

  4. Julia says:

    HIPPIES UNITE! I love these types of meals! AND THE SAUCE!! Tahini + mustard = MUST TRY! I’m droooling over veggies and tahini and it’s 6am.. 😉 So excited to see what the new seedlings will bring to the table in 2014!

    1. Andrea says:

      Girl, this meal is something we will serve up over a food bloggers weekend at our farm 🙂

  5. cheri says:

    What a perfect meal, love your tahini sauce

    1. Andrea says:

      Thank you!

  6. I love meals like this for quick and healthy dinners! Usually I just drench mine in Sriracha but I’m thinking I need to get on board with the hippie sauce! Looks great – I am definitely picking up tahini and nutritional yeast next time I’m at Whole Foods.

    1. Andrea says:

      Tahini and nutritional yeast are my go-to weapons in the kitchen! Let me know if you make this sauce! We can’t get enough!

  7. Harmony says:

    Looks delicious!

    Have you tried miso for a sauce like that? I love it on a bowl of roasted veggies and brown rice or quinoa, and maybe some roasted tofu. Just whisk miso (I like the mild white for dressings) with a little smashed garlic/ginger, rice wine vinegar, and a bit of olive oil. Yum!

    I loved it so much I posted a picture of it the first time I had it. With some smoked sesame seeds on top.
    http://instagram.com/p/f1Zj8ICRTd/

    1. Andrea says:

      I LOVE miso. I make a similar sauce as you do. So delicious! Thanks for the lovely comment!

  8. Angela Wood says:

    I’m thinking this hippie sauce is a bit like Yumm Sauce from Cafe Yumm???

    1. Andrea says:

      Angela, I’ve never been to cafe Yumm but I’ve heard they have an awesome sauce! This sauce is my attempt at recreating a “secret sauce” from Blossoming Lotus in PDX. It’s like “hippie” crack! SO good!

  9. Sarah says:

    Love it. I’d eat a hippie bowl any day of the week and own it! Hope to come visit your farmer’s market stand and give that kale a go 😉

    1. Andrea says:

      Definitely come to the farmers market this season! We’ll have plenty of kale for ya!

  10. Hi Andrea, I just discovered your blog. Where have I been?? It is lovely and fabulous and gorgeous. I look forward to reading through your archives and following your new posts. 🙂

    1. Andrea says:

      Thanks for finding the blog! Happy to have you along for the ride 🙂

  11. My kind of meal, totally. I guess I’m a hippie at heart. And oooh, exciting about your seeds!!

    1. Andrea says:

      I’m happy to know you are a hippie at heart too!

  12. Hi Andrea! I’m a new follower. I found your site through the lovely Julia of The Roasted Root. You have such a gret site here. I love that you get to play in the dirt for a living. This bowl of veggie goodness looks amazing. It’s going on my menu this week. Now, to commence stalking. Just kidding 🙂

    1. Andrea says:

      Yay! I’m so happy you found the blog! thanks for following along.

  13. Liz says:

    Yes! I used this as a base for what I had on hand. My version: onion, garlic, red pepper, green beans, mushroom, and broccoli, mixed with quinoa, raw carrot, sunflower seeds, and almonds. I almost made the sauce exact to direction, but I never measure and I used red wine vinegar instead. YUM! This will definitely be a staple and I cannot wait to try this again with avocado, cabbage, and chickpeas. Thank you, Andrea!

    1. Andrea says:

      Yum! I’m so happy you enjoyed this!

  14. Joyti says:

    Congrats on the 2014 seeds! I hope for West Coasters, it rains lots and LOTS this month, all before you plant those seeds of course!

    The bowls look delicious, especially that sauce 🙂

    1. Andrea says:

      Thank you! And thanks for sending rain vibes our way!!!

  15. Johanna says:

    This looks wonderful Andrea! I want to make it tomorrow but I live in Sweden and nutritional yeast is pretty hard to find around here. Do you think I can substitute it with something? I dont want to just leave it out as it is 3 tbsp. Thanks!

    1. Andrea says:

      Hi Johanna,
      Thanks for the lovely comment. Nutritional yeast has such a unique flavor that I don’t have a good substitute option for it. However, this dish would taste equally good if you made more of an asian sauce. Take out the nutritional yeast and mustard and add 1 TBS white miso paste 1 TBS ginger, and 1 TBS soy sauce. I think that would taste awesome! Let me know if you give it a whirl. Otherwise, I think it is totally worth it to order nutritional yeast online. You can order it from Amazon!

      1. Johanna says:

        Thanks for giving me an alternative sauce, but I decided to go ahead and order nutritional yeast from iHerb. It arrived today so Im gonna make the dish some day this week!

  16. I made this recipe for dinner last night and absolutely fell in love with it. The sauce paris perfectly with the hearty veggies. Thank you so much for sharing.

  17. Alyssa says:

    I am completely in LOVE with this dish! The “secret’ sauce is amazing and could definitely eat this everyday! Do you have the nutrition content? I just stumbled across your blog and love it! Your recipes all sound delicious and the pictures are beautiful.

    1. Andrea says:

      Hi Alyssa,
      I’m so happy you stumbled across the blog and enjoyed these hippie bowls. As far as nutritional breakdown I do not count calories. Instead I choose to eat balanced meals with food grown from the earth that is packed with vital nutrients that I know my body will react positively to. I hope you find this helpful! Thanks again for reading along!

  18. Callie says:

    Thank you! So pumped to make this! I’ve been making an effort to make bowls like this more regularly because it’s so healthy and has so many easy variations. This fits right in with a post from NutritionStripped.com on batch cooking these ingredients in advance. Keep the kale recipes coming!

  19. Jo says:

    I just made this and it is my new favorite sauce!!! I can’t wait to drench it in everything! Thanks so much!

  20. Melissa says:

    Made this tonight – delicious! And not overly time-consuming. Will definitely make again.

  21. Gabrielle says:

    I’m in love with this recipe! I did it twice last week. It’s a must! Thank you
    Much love from Canada,

    G.

  22. Rubby Babbit says:

    Thank you for posting this!!!! My gf and I now eat hippie bowls twice a week for dinners!!!

  23. jennifer says:

    Just made your dish last night and can I say “YUM!” I was a bit nervous about the sauce, but it won me over quickly. Keep up the great work. I look forward to cooking this year in season with your recipes!

    Jennifer

  24. Mary says:

    These are so good! Thank you so much for sharing and introducing me to nutritional yeast! I like this sauce almost as much as the creamy lime-almond butter one!

  25. Kayla says:

    Made this today and it was amazing! It tasted amazing! Only changes that I made were cooking the quinoa in vegetable stock instead of water and subbing agave for honey to make the dish vegan. The sauce totally made it! Thanks for the great recipe!

  26. Kaitlin says:

    This dish is amazing! I’m soooooo hooked on the sauce. Can’t believe you made that up yourself- it’s such a crazy combo that is surprisingly tasty. I’ve made this twice now and the second time I used it as a guide to use up random veggies in my fridge. I also used peanut butter instead of tahini and it was just as good. This is why I love recipes like this!

    So bravo Andrea! So glad I found your blog via foodgawker, you think of the best stuff!

  27. Kim says:

    Holy Wow!!!! This dish was amazing, especially the sauce. I own a Vegan/Organic food delivery service and made this for my clients yesterday. I had lots of wonderful feedback. This recipe will definitely be added to my menu rotation. Thanks for the inspiration! 🙂

  28. Huge thumbs up for this sauce! We had these bowls for dinner tonight and they were aaaamazing. I think you’ve officially cured Nate of his tahini hatred – he loved this sauce, even knowing it had tahini in it! Vegan Caesar was the gateway drug 🙂 Thanks for another awesome recipe!

    1. Andrea says:

      YAY!!!! I’m so happy you guys loved them too. I’m glad Nate is turning into a tahini lover!!! It took Taylor a little while to come around too 🙂

  29. Jane says:

    I am a little late to the party as I just discovered your wonderful blog yesterday. Of course, this resulted in a flurry of pinning! I love your recipes as they are uber healthy, not fussy & creative. As a fellow Oregonian, I also know when you post new recipes, I can find the ingredients right here in Oregon! We just finished planting eight 4×8 garden beds. We didn’t have a garden before as we had a monstrous Sequoia tree that dominated our back yard until we had it taken down last year as it was beginning to encroach on our foundation. Now I spend a lot of time in the garden, cooing at all my starts & being delighted daily at any new growth. Wishing you a fabulous growing season!

  30. Joan says:

    Made this last night…hippie sauce rocks!!

  31. Paula says:

    Made it tonight. Everybody loved it!!! It’s a keeper!!

    1. Andrea says:

      I’m so happy you love it as much as we do!!! Thanks for the lovely comment. xo

  32. Emma says:

    Hippie sauce Rules!!!! that is all that needs to be said 😉

  33. Terry says:

    OMG – this is fabulous! We will make this often and forever. It can be different every time, depending on the veggies and grains. I think the sauce would make fantastic cold sesame noodles. I spooned some over a plate of corn chips and put it in the microwave for a little while and made awesome nachos – a perfect snack. So, so yummy – thank you SO MUCH for sharing! :o)

  34. Marie says:

    Sounds wonderful! Just wondering about the quinoa, shouldn´t it be 1 cup cooked quinoa?
    1 cup dry seems an awful lot for 2 servings?

    1. Andrea says:

      We use 1 cup uncooked so we have leftover quinoa all week long. feel free to adjust the amount to your personal preference. Enjoy.

  35. Amy Narlock says:

    Oh my – I have never been a huge fan of tamari (outside of hummus) and I completely botched up the ratios in the hippie sauce so I wasn’t expecting too much… It’s insane!! I loved it the first night and dumped it on tacos the next night and I’ll be pouring it all over whatever I have tonight! Everything I’ve ever made from your site is just tops!

  36. Charlotte says:

    Okay, ever since you made this sauce with me (and bought me the tahini to do so) it has become a regular in my dinner and lunch rotation. Sometimes I change it up, like adding curry+tumeric in place of nutritional yeast to change up the flavor, but most often I just make it as you suggest and MAN OH MAN its good!

  37. Poppy says:

    I made this with dinner tonight, and I absolutely loved it! Fantastic mix of warm and crunchy, totally filling, easy for beginners. The sauce rocked, too. I had to sub pecans for the nuts and they were a great touch. Thank you! Your blog helped me go gluten / dairy free!

  38. Charlotte says:

    I had leftover roasted veggies, and just whipped up some of this sauce in about a minute to dump over them…. after eating half of it with a spoon. SO GOOD.

    1. Andrea says:

      yay!!! so stoked you love the sauce. xoxo

  39. Kaitlyn McConnell says:

    Wow- yes! This sauce is amazing.

  40. Suzy says:

    Thank you, this was delicious! If I make a big batch of the “hippie sauce”, do you know how long it would last in the refrigerator?

  41. Mobasir hassan says:

    Truly appreciate the way you made this. Everything is so nicely described that really helped me. Looking forward.

  42. Meredith T. says:

    I have made this recipe so many times, and I love it. It’s so warm and tasty, and I love the warm/cold contrast. Thanks for this great recipe!

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