Homemade Chicken Burrito Bowls

These homemade chicken burrito bowls are easy to make at home and taste just as good as store-bought. Best of all, you can add however much you like of each component! This recipe is also perfect for meal prep, as each part of the bowl keeps well in the refrigerator.

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If you're a huge fan of fast casual Mexican, then this recipe is a must-try. It's cheaper than store-bought when meal prepped in big batches, but looks and tastes just like what you'd get at the restaurant.

We'd recommend making a big batch to enjoy throughout the week! Thanks to Zwilling Fresh and Save vacuum sealed storage containers, each component can be kept fresh for up to a week!

Jump to:

• Homemade Chicken Burrito Bowl Ingredients
• Other components
• How to Make this Homemade Chicken Burrito Bowl Recipe
• Substitutions and Variations
• Storage
• Tips and FAQ
• Top tip
• More homemade bowl recipes
• Reviews

Homemade Chicken Burrito Bowl Ingredients

For the chicken

• Chicken thighs: You can also use chicken breasts, but chicken thighs are a bit juicier, and when chopped into smaller pieces, you don't really notice the slightly tougher texture. They also cook much faster than chicken breast, since they're typically thinner.
• Canned chipotles in adobo: You can find these in the Mexican section of your local supermarket. These are jalapeños that have been dried and smoked. For this recipe, we'll use a few of the chipotles in the can, and the remainder of the adobo sauce, which is a combination of pureéd tomato, vinegar, garlic and spices. You can also rehydrate Morita chilis in boiling water for a more authentic take.
• Mexican oregano and cumin seed: We toasted these whole for extra flavor. A note on Mexican oregano: this is not the same as regular oregano, but it shouldn't be too hard to find in the store. You can also use marjoram instead.
• Honey: helps to balance out the smoky and spicy components of the adobo sauce.
• Salt, pepper, and garlic: These round out the adobo marinade.

For the rice

• Long grain white rice: We used white rice, but you can also use brown rice if that's your preference.
• Bay leaves: Adds flavor to the water that your rice will absorb.
• Oil: Adds a nice richness to the rice, and helps prevent it from clumping together.
• Lime and cilantro: These are the stars of the show, so be sure to use freshly squeezed lime juice and fresh cilantro. If you really hate the taste of cilantro, leave it out or replace it with flat leaf parsley.

For the guacamole

• Avocados: Make sure to use large, ripe avocados so that they're easy to mash.
• Lime juice: This is key because it not only adds the fresh lime flavor that makes guacamole, delicious, but also helps prevent the guacamole from turning brown.
• Cilantro: Use fresh cilantro, or leave it out if you don't like the taste.
• Red onion: If you don't like the taste of onion, you can run the diced onion under hot water, then cold water, to remove some of the bite from the onion's flavor.
• Jalapeño: If you're OK with a little spice, leave the seeds in.

Other components

• Fajita veggies: These are just a 3-to-1 ratio of green bell pepper and red onion seasoned with Mexican oregano and kosher salt.
• Corn salsa: We slightly adapted this recipe from Culinary Hill. Our mango corn salsa would also be great on these chicken burrito bowls!
• Black or pinto beans: To save on time, we used canned black beans.
• Cheese: You can use your favorite cheese, but we opted for a Chihuahua quesadilla-style cheese.
• Salsa: We used a store-bought tomatillo salsa to save on time. This cherry tomato salsa would be great on top!

How to Make this Homemade Chicken Burrito Bowl Recipe

STEP 1: Prepare the chicken marinade and marinate the chicken. Add 3-5 peppers from the chipotles in adobo can to a blender, then add in the rest of the liquid from the can. Toast the Mexican oregano and cumin seeds in a pan and then add to the blender with the garlic, honey, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth then pour over 1 pound of chicken thighs. Marinate for 4 hours or up to overnight.

STEP 2: Cook your rice. Add water, bay leaves, and rice to a pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for 10-15 minutes, covered, then turn off the heat, keeping the pot covered, and let the rice steam for 10 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork, then mix in oil, salt, cilantro, and lime juice.

STEP 3: Make the guacamole. Mash 2 avocados and then stir in red onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and jalapeño.

STEP 4: Make the corn salsa. Cut the corn off of two ears of corn, roast and peel a poblano pepper, then combine corn, red onion, citrus juice, poblano and jalapeño, cilantro and salt.

STEP 5: Cook the chicken. We would strongly recommend doing this on your grill, as the cooking process will release a lot of strong pepper smell into the air. Cook for 4-5 minutes per side, until thighs reach an internal temperature of 165˚F.

STEP 6: Assemble your bowls. Lay down a base of rice, add a scoop of black or pinto beans (we used canned and rinsed beans), a scoop of chicken, some corn salsa, a scoop of guac, a dollop of store bought salsa, and some cheese. Enjoy!

To make the optional fajita veggies, combine 1.5 cups of julienned green bell pepper with ½ cup sliced red onion. Add pinch of kosher salt and ½ tablespoon of oregano and cook on medium high heat until nicely browned.

Substitutions and Variations

• Vegetarian: You can make this with tofu sofritas (Chipotle copycat recipe) instead of chicken for a vegetarian option. Alternatively, you can just substitute the chicken with tofu in this recipe. Or, just use beans as the main vegetarian protein. Our vegan Cuban black beans would be a delicious addition!
• If you want your chicken to be less spicy, only use 2 chipotles from the can.
• If you want a lower carb option, try our cilantro lime cauliflower rice as the base for this bowl.
• Quick pickled red cabbage and/or quick pickled red onions would make great additions to this bowl!

Storage

When it comes to meal prep containers, you can't go wrong with Zwilling's Fresh & Save containers!

These containers can be vacuum sealed to keep food fresh for up to five times longer than regular containers. We've been using Zwilling's Fresh & Save line for years now, and they're the only storage containers we use - there's a drawer in our house that's filled with them, and our fridge is always packed with Fresh & Save containers!

Best of all, they're dishwasher safe, microwave safe, freezer safe and they come in plenty of sizes. The glass ones that we show here are also oven safe! So go ahead, try them out!

P.S. If you use our code “CROWDED” when purchasing the 7-piece starter set, you’ll receive a free small lunch box!

Tips and FAQ

More tips

• Cook the chicken until it reaches an internal temperature of 165˚F.
• For maximum flavor, let the chicken marinade for at least a few hours (or overnight) before cooking.
• Store the components individually for easy reheating, since some components, like guacamole, shouldn't be reheated.
• Storage: We use these vacuum sealed containers to keep our food fresh for extra long. These chicken burrito bowl components tend to last about 5-6 days in our containers (including the guacamole – the vacuum seal prevents it from going brown!).
• Make it vegan/vegetarian: Try our sofritas tofu recipe in place of the chicken.

More homemade bowl recipes

Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:

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