Flavorful Beef Burrito Bowl Recipe for Easy Meal Prep

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Cooking With Anadi

12K subscribers · ground beef, homemade taco seasoning, rice and toppings

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This easy burrito bowl is the perfect meal prep option or to eat fresh! I’ve been hooked on these bowls lately, and I’m sure they will become a new go-to for you too!

I really love to explore Mexican cooking, especially with tacos and quesadillas. From Baja Fish Tacos, Mexican Shrimp and Bacon Wraps, to Oven-Baked Quesadillas with Spicy Guacamole, I love celebrating Taco Tuesday! Now you don’t have to wait for dinner time to do it, though! This recipe is so versatile and fun to make and eat, and while there are many varieties, I'm sharing my current favorite. This goes very well with basmati rice and topped with some fresh toppings that are packed with flavor! The meat is so juicy, spicy, tender and adds great body to the dish.

What Is This Beef Burrito Bowl Recipe?

This beef burrito bowl recipe is simply a burrito in a bowl, consisting of all the fillings you’d have in a traditional burrito without the tortilla! The beauty of a burrito bowl is that the ingredients that are usually fillings in a burrito are going to be the star here! The burrito “toppings” are served over some rice. I’ve topped my burrito bowl with sour cream, black beans, Pico de Gallo, diced avocado, and sour cream. Because we’re not using a tortilla, the bowls are great for meal prepping because you won’t get your bread soggy if you wanted to eat this later!

Tools Needed

• Nonstick pan
• Spatula
• Wooden spoon
• Cutting board
• Chefs knife
• Garlic press
• Measuring cups
• Large bowl

Ingredients Required for This Beef Burrito Bowl Recipe

You can review the complete ingredient list with their quantities and save the recipe for later by scrolling to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD, or by pressing the “Jump to Recipe” button.

For the Ground Beef Mixture

• Minced meat: I’m using ground beef, but if you really wanted to you could opt for ground pork, or even poultry, such as ground chicken or turkey.
• Onion: Finely diced.
• Garlic: Whole garlic cloves, minced.
• Tomatoes: My favorite tomatoes are the tomatoes on the vine. You’ll want to finely dice them.
• Taco Seasoning: You can use a store-bought one or by following my Homemade Taco Seasoning recipe. You’ll have plenty of extra seasoning leftover so you can easily use it throughout the week! As I recommend in my free motivational guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, using what you have on hand can inspire you with new recipes to try out! Another tip is to have a theme, and these two tips can go hand-in-hand because if you plan out a Mexican week, then a lot of the ingredients of this dish can be repeated in others!
• Salt: Key seasoning to taste!
• Cilantro: Freshly chopped cilantro for garnish.
• Water: Add as needed if your meat mixture is dry.

For Toppings

• Shredded cheese: I really love the Mexican fiesta cheese blend from my local grocery store. It’s also a real time saver since the cheese is pre-shredded. However, you can use any shredded cheese you’d like, such as a blend of mozzarella and cheddar.
• Shredded lettuce: I shredded the iceberg lettuce myself but you could save some time and buy a bag of pre-shredded lettuce if you’d like.
• Rice: I’m following my Simple Basmati Rice recipe, but other rice options that would be really delicious here include my Chipotle Cilantro-Lime Rice, Mexican Red Rice, or even my Indian Turmeric Rice!
• Black beans: I recommend you prepare my Black Bean Salsa for tons of flavor! Otherwise, you could just add some simple black beans, and I like to cook my dried black beans in the Instant Pot, as you can see how to do here. Cooking fresh dried beans is much cheaper, and once again, you can cook a lot and use them throughout the week! However, if you’re in a pinch for time, then canned black beans will certainly do the trick.
• Authentic Pico de Gallo: You can make this in advance to have it ready to go as a topping. You will also have plenty to use throughout the week, and it only takes about 5 minutes to get this together!
• Sour cream
• Avocado: I’ll be dicing some fresh avocado. If you want to, you could prepare my Incredible Easy Homemade Guacamole! However, as a time-saving option, I’ve opted to just use plain avocado.
• Cilantro: Additional cilantro to bring the bowl together!

Tips for Making the Best Burrito Bowl Recipe

• Deglaze the pan after adding in the taco seasoning with a splash of broth or water to lift flavors from the pan and add depth to the dish.
• If short on time, substitute the fresh chopped tomatoes with a canned San Marzano type tomatoes or for a smoky flavor, use fire-roasted canned tomatoes.
• Adding frozen corn or diced bell peppers along with the beef can help add more color, texture and nutrients to the dish.
• Other great toppings can be cheese, salsa, guacamole, pickled onions, pickled jalapeños and a drizzle of burrito sauce, spicy mayonnaise or green goddess sauce.

How to Make a Burrito Bowl?

Heat a pan on medium heat. Add the ground beef and breakdown any large chunks of meat using a spatula or a wooden spoon. Season with salt and cook for 5-8 minutes or until it is mostly browned.

Add garlic, onions and taco seasoning and sauté for 5-8 minutes or until the onions turn soft and the spices are cooked well.

Add the tomatoes and mix well, cook until the tomatoes break down and soften. Add water and mix well if the mixture is too dry. To create a gravy, add more water and simmer gently until you get the desired consistency.

In the meanwhile, cook your rice as per package directions. Learn how to make easy fluffy rice for more tips and tricks! Once the meat and rice have cooked, assemble the bowl. Add the rice followed by the beef mixture.

Then, add the lettuce, cheese, black beans, pico de gallo, and sour cream and top with avocado and cilantro. Serve hot and enjoy!

Meal Prepping This Beef Burrito Bowl Recipe

This burrito bowl is the ideal recipe for meal prepping! You can use the recipe card below to help you scale the recipe easily, so you can double, triple, or quadruple the recipe as needed and save it for the week. However, I would recommend that you store the beef and rice mixture with the beans, and add your toppings such as avocado, salsa, cheese and sour cream when ready to serve.

To store, simply portion out the dish into airtight containers. These burrito bowls will stay good in the fridge for 4 days.

Reheating Burrito Bowls

Microwaving the burrito bowls is definitely the easiest method, which is of course perfect to do at your school’s or office’s kitchen. If preparing these bowls ahead of time, you should store the heat sensitive toppings separately, like the pico de gallo, lettuce, cheese, sour cream but store the mince, rice and beans together. Prior to reheating, sprinkle some water over the rice/beef mixture to help maintain moisture while microwaving. Microwave the burrito bowls for about 3 minutes, stirring in 1 minute intervals to ensure that the rice, beans and meat are thoroughly warmed through. Once warm, add your toppings as desired.

Building the Taco Meat

The taco meat is the only part that needs real cooking, and it all happens in one large skillet. Brown 1 lb — 16 oz — of ground beef over medium heat, breaking up the chunks with a spatula and seasoning with salt, for 5 to 8 minutes until it has mostly lost its pink. Add 2 minced garlic cloves, a finely diced medium onion and 1 tbsp of taco seasoning, then saute for another 5 to 8 minutes so the spices actually cook rather than sitting raw on the meat — the cumin in the blend needs that heat to open up. Then in go 2 finely diced medium tomatoes; stir and cook until they collapse. If the pan looks dry, add water a splash at a time, and if you want more of a gravy, add more liquid and let it simmer down to the consistency you want. Deglaze right after the seasoning goes in and you will lift everything stuck to the base of the pan back into the sauce.

Swaps, Variations and Extra Veg

This is more of a template than a fixed recipe. The ground beef can become ground pork, chicken or turkey with no change to the method. Corn kernels straight from frozen and diced bell pepper can go in alongside the beef for colour and a bit of sweetness. Red onion works in place of the yellow one and is sharper, while sliced green onions scattered over the finished bowl give a fresher bite than either. For the base, the recipe points at plain basmati, but cilantro-lime rice, Mexican red rice or even turmeric rice all belong in this bowl. The toppings are where the variations really live: shredded lettuce, Mexican cheese blend, black beans, pico de gallo, sour cream, avocado, pickled onions, pickled jalapenos, or a drizzle of spicy mayonnaise. A squeeze of lime juice over the top and lime wedges on the side pull the whole thing together, and it is the one finish worth not skipping.

The Easiest Burrito Bowl Meal Prep

Ground beef burrito bowls are close to the ideal meal-prep dish, because the components keep far better separately than a rolled burrito ever would. Cook the rice per package instructions — usually somewhere around 2 cups water to 1 cup of rice in a small saucepan — while the beef simmers, then scale the recipe up using the recipe card and portion the rest of the ingredients into airtight containers. Keep the rice and taco meat together and the heat-sensitive toppings apart: lettuce, sour cream, avocado and pico de gallo belong in their own container, or go on fresh at lunch. Packed that way they hold in the refrigerator for 4 days. Reheat only the rice and beef in the microwave and add the cold toppings afterwards — avocado in particular does not survive a trip through the microwave.

Other Easy Beef Recipes

• Keto Egg Roll in a Bowl
• Jamaican Jerk Pepper Steak
• Better Than Takeout Beef Fried Rice
• Chipotle-Glazed Mini Meatloaves
• Easy Cheesy DIY Taco Casserole