The Beach has been one of our bestselling Fresh bowls for years, and is one of the easiest things on our menu to make at home. You can follow this recipe exactly, or just use it as a guide for making a bowl that will use up whatever veggies and accents you have in your fridge. At the restaurants we use brown rice or soba noodles as a base, but this is also amazing on jasmine rice, or any kind of noodle you have around. The magic of this bowl is how versatile it is, and how easy it is to make whatever is in your fridge feel like a treat when you put this sauce with it. This sauce goes so perfectly with whatever you put it on – it’s like The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants in sauce form!

Our version of this bowl features vegan feta, which needs to be made a day ahead, but if you don’t feel like making that from scratch, you can sub any vegan protein – use your favourite cheese, tofu, tempeh, chick peas, beans, a dollop of hummus – they would all be great here.

We use mixed greens, sweet potato and red pepper in this bowl, but zucchini, asparagus, spinach or any other veggie you have in your fridge will work equally well. In this recipe I’ve described how to cook the veggies in a frying pan and oven, but if you have a grill at home, feel fry to grill the sweet potato and red pepper instead.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Put sweet potato slices onto baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until tender, turning over halfway through.
3. When sweet potato is almost done, heat more olive oil in frying pan over medium high heat and add red pepper slices. Cook until crisp tender, remove from pan and set aside. Add greens to pan with tamari and toss for a minute or so until wilted and tender.
4. To assemble bowls, divide cooked rice or noodles between 2 large bowls and drizzle each with 2 tbsp of Beach Sauce.
5. Arrange cooked vegetables, sun-dried tomatoes and avocado on top.
6. Finish with sunflower sprouts and another drizzle of beach sauce on top.
7. Garnish with lemon wedges and vegan feta on the side of the bowls

Beach Sauce

Leftovers will keep in the fridge for up to 1 month.

Yield: 1 cup (250 ml)

Directions

1. Put everything into a mason jar and shake well.

Vegan Feta

Make this the day before you want to eat it so the flavours can meld together overnight. The key to this cheese is the refined coconut oil – you need the kind that has had all the coconut flavour removed – it will usually say something like “neutral flavour and scent” on the jar. This is a great ingredient because it is solid when it’s cold and then melts when it gets warm, just like real cheese.

This keeps for at least a week in the fridge.

Yield: approximately 10-12 servings

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and purée until extremely smooth.
2. Put mixture into container, cover tightly and refrigerate overnight before serving.