Easy Buffalo Chicken Rice Bowl (Meal Prep Friendly)
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These buffalo chicken rice bowls are an explosion of flavor. The chicken is tossed in a homemade spicy buffalo sauce, mixed with fresh crunchy veggies and tossed over a 50/50 split bed of rice and cauliflower rice.
Made with hot sauce, Greek yogurt and syrup, this creamy buffalo sauce coats the chicken but I suggest making extra to use as a dressing for the buffalo bowls. Add some blue cheese crumbles or thinly sliced red onion and prepare to be amazed.
For more buffalo recipes, try buffalo chicken tenders, buffalo ranch chicken salad and buffalo ranch chicken lasagna.
Why you’ll love this recipe
- 415 calories per bowl.
- Simple ingredients with pre-packaged rice.
Ingredients and Substitutes:
These are the main ingredients and substitutions. See recipe card below for full ingredients list and instructions for this spicy buffalo chicken rice bowl recipe.
- Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast: shredded chicken, chicken tenders or chicken thighs are great options. Use leftover rotisserie chicken to avoid cooking.
- Frank’s Red Hot Sauce: use a hot sauce you love but Frank never fails. You can also use Frank’s buffalo wing sauce and mix it with the greek yogurt.
- Lite Pancake Syrup: honey or pure maple syrup.
- Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt: added to the buffalo sauce to make it creamy. You can use full-fat for a richer sauce.
- Frozen Riced Cauliflower: I did a mix of regular rice and cauliflower rice to lower the carbs.
- Basmati Ready Rice: I used trusty Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice so I didn’t have to cook rice but you can cook white rice or brown rice. I love to make these when I have leftover rice, too. Omit the rice to make this low carb.
- Lime Juice: I prefer store-bought lime juice because you never know what flavor you’ll get with fresh.
- Cherry Tomatoes
- English Cucumber
- Shredded Carrots
- Green Onions
- Ranch Dressing: I used Bolthouse Farms but try my homemade ranch dressing for a dairy-free version. Blue cheese dressing is also a classic with these bowls.
Variations
- Add other crunchy vegetables: bell pepper, a bag of cabbage slaw mix, red onion or roasted cauliflower.
- Add black beans.
- Top with blue cheese crumbles or feta cheese, I like to melt them on top by mixing in when the chicken is super hot.
Dietary Modifications
- This recipe is gluten-free, as is.
- To make dairy-free, use a dairy-free greek yogurt.
How to make this buffalo chicken rice bowl (a step-by-step visual guide):
Step 1: cook the chicken & add sauce
Heat a large skillet over medium, spray with cooking spray and add the cubed chicken. Season with salt and black pepper (image 1) and cook until it is fully cooked through and no longer pink in the center, approximately 8-10 minutes. While the chicken cooks add all the sauce ingredients to a sauce pan and whisk while boiling to thicken some. Once the chicken is cooked through add the greek yogurt to the sauce and mix until it is fully combined (image 2). Pour the sauce into the pan with the chicken (image 3) and mix to coat (image 4).
Step 2: mix the rice blend
Cook the cauliflower rice and basmati according to their package instructions. Mix them two together in a bowl (image 5) and drizzle with some lime juice.
Step 3: assemble the bowls
Assemble the buffalo chicken rice bowl with rice blend, cooked buffalo sauce covered chicken, shredded carrots, sliced cucumber, chopped green onion and a drizzle of ranch (image 6).
Expert Tip!
Use shredded rotisserie chicken to completely eliminate the cooking part of this recipe.
Recipe FAQs
Keep the cold veggies and cooked chicken in separate containers in the fridge for up 3 days. Place the cold veggies on top of the chicken after heating. This allows for warm chicken and cold crunchy veggies in your bowl and prevents the veggies from getting soggy. Add blue cheese crumbles or any dressings after heating.
Place the raw the chicken in the instant pot with the hot sauce, syrup and seasonings and cook for about 10 minutes or until an internal temp of 165 degrees F. Add the greek yogurt after shredding and mix everything together.
Of course. If going that route, mix it with the greek yogurt post cooking to add richness.
Check out some of our other easy recipes!
If you make this recipe, please leave a rating and/or comment! Tag me on Instagram @ohsnapmacros, I love hearing from you!
Buffalo Chicken Rice Bowl
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Ingredients
- 1 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breast cubed
- salt and pepper
- 1/3 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce or favorite
- 1 Tbsp. lite pancake syrup or honey, maple or date paste
- 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/4 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt
- 1 bag frozen cauliflower riced 12 oz.
- 1 bag Uncle Ben's Basmati Ready Rice or cooked 235 g
- 1 Tbsp. lime juice
- 12 cherry tomatoes chopped
- 1/3 English cucumber thinly sliced
- 3/4 cup shredded carrots
- 2 green onions chopped
- 3 Tbsp. Bolthouse Farms ranch dressing any ranch will work
Instructions
- Heat a pan over medium, spray with cooking spray and add the cubed chicken. Season with salt and pepper and cook until it is fully cooked through and no longer pink in the center approximately 8-10 minutes.
- While the chicken cooks add the hot sauce, garlic powder and syrup to a sauce pan and whisk while boiling to thicken some. Once the chicken is cooked through add the greek yogurt to the sauce and mix until it is fully combined. Pour the sauce into the pan with the chicken and mix to coat.
- Cook the cauliflower rice and basmati according to their package instructions. Mix them two together in a bowl and drizzle with some lime juice.
- Assemble the buffalo chicken rice bowl with rice blend, cooked buffalo sauce covered chicken, shredded carrots, sliced cucumber, chopped green onions and ranch dressing.
- Meal prepping 3 bowls: split your chicken between 3 bowls, 161 grams of rice blend, 1/4 cup shredded carrots, 4 chopped cherry tomatoes, a couple slices of cucumber and chopped green onions. Recipe makes 3 bowls. Top with 1 tbsp. of your favorite ranch (Bolthouse Farms ranch is included in nutrition facts).
Notes
- All nutrition facts are a estimate.
- Use leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken to make this even easier.
- To lower the carbs, use only cauliflower rice.
- For gluten-free, ensure your ranch dressing is certified GF.
This was delicious! It’s easy customize, very filling, and quick to make!
Similar to the other reviews, 1 lb. of chicken wasn’t enough for 3 servings so next time I’ll use 1.5 lbs.
I love this recipe!!! I was wondering if there was anyway you can put this in MFP with only the chicken? Just wondering. 🙂
Sure! You’d just need to make the recipe in MFP using what you use and then you can use your recipe to log however you use it.
Easy and so delicious! Crowd pleaser 👏🏼
Great to hear!
Do you warm the rice and chicken then add the veggies on top or eat it cold?
I prefer it warm but you could do a cold bowl too if you prefer. With rice, I would usually warm at least that part up, though so the rice isn’t hard.
Omg this is my favorite so far! I love everything buffalo. I accidentally bought vanilla yogurt instead of plain so I omitted the syrup and it turned out great. Oops!
This recipe is definitely a keeper!! The flavors blend together so nicely. I also had a problem with the serving size of the chicken. I was only able to get 2 servings out of it. Other than that it is delicious 😋
I made this recipe exactly as is says, Easy and amazing flavor!
Made for dinner last night and it was a family hit!! Good amount of Buffalo flavor!
This was delicious! So easy and so good, it will definitely be part of my rotation. Only thing is I only got 2 bowls with 166 grams of chicken and one with only 100. Should it have been 1 lb AFTER being cooked? I used 1.14 lbs cooked. Thank you for making it easy to track macros!
1 lbs. raw meat. That’s exactly why I always encourage you weigh your final and divide by servings because if you simmer longer, chicken loses more or less liquid etc., the weights change. It’s near impossible to be exact for everyone when they’re cooking for themselves.
What could I have done wrong?
our package of chicken was 1.5 lbs. and I couldn’t get 166 grams into 3 bowls.
However this smells delicious and I can’t wait for lunch this week 🙂