Slow Cooker Burrito Bowls
These vegetarian slow cooker burrito bowls are SO easy to make, no pre-cooking required! Serve hot with your choice of toppings – I like cheese and avocado!
My veggie burrito bowls are still one of the most popular recipes on this blog, even now, 3 years later. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything (except that I totally am), but I still get pretty regular comments about how much people enjoy the recipe. That’s how I know you guys are my soul mates – anything with spicy black beans, covered in melted cheese, you love about as much as I do.
I’m hoping that you’re also as lazy as I am (read: pretty damn lazy), because I thought it was time to revamp my old burrito bowl recipe into a version that’s even easier, even quicker to prepare, and just as delicious (the italics make it extra true). That’s right, I bring you slow cooker burrito bowls! Huzzah!
The basic process is this:
1. Put some ingredients in the slow cooker. You don’t need to pre-cook anything, because that would be rubbish. Mix it around a bit.
2. Turn it on (this really does need to be a step all on its own, otherwise this list of processes would just be far too short).
3. Wait for three hours. Take a bath or drink a bottle of wine or something.
4. Top the burrito bowls with grated cheese, avocado, sour cream, or whatever else tickles your fancy (this is the fun bit).
5. Eat (…okay, maybe this is the fun bit).
See? Really couldn’t be any easier. You’ve got your beans, your veggies, your rice – all cooked together in one big yummy mix. Feel free to swap around the veggies depending on what you have in the fridge, add a bit more hot sauce if you like things spicy, use different spices to put your own spin on it. The slow cooker burrito bowl is your oyster.
I kept my toppings pretty simple – some grated cheddar, fresh coriander (that’s cilantro, and it’s a must in my book), a dollop of sour cream, and some sliced avocado. You can add whatever toppings you fancy though, of course. Mexican food (even knock-off, untraditional Mexican food like this) has so many options when it comes to toppings, so go crazy. Salsa, guacamole, jalapeños, spring onions, a squeeze of lime… toppings for daaaays.
What would you pile up on top of your slow cooker burrito bowl?
Slow cooker burrito bowls
If you’ve cooked this recipe, don’t forget to leave a star rating!
Print Pin CommentIngredients
- 1 onion, diced or thinly sliced
- 1 bell pepper (I used yellow), diced
- 1 mild red chilli, finely chopped
- 400 g tin black beans, drained (240g, or ~ 1 1/4 cups, when drained)
- 215 g uncooked brown rice (~ 1 cup)
- 400 g tin chopped tomatoes (~ 1 1/2 cups)
- 150 ml water (~ 1/2 cup)
- 1 tbsp chipotle hot sauce (or other favourite hot sauce)
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- Salt
- Black pepper
- To serve, your choice of: grated cheese, fresh coriander (cilantro), chopped spring onions, sliced avocado, sour cream, guacamole, etc.
Instructions
- Add all the burrito bowl ingredients (not toppings) to a slow cooker – mine is 4.7 litres / 4 quarts. Mix well.
- Cook on low for around 3 hours, or until the rice is cooked *see note below*.
- Serve hot with your choice of toppings.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.
Love a Mexican-style dinner made in the slow cooker? You’ll love my slow cooker enchilada chilli:
Tried this for Christmas Day dinner… bad idea! I also could not get my brown rice to cook this way. Threw everything in the rice cooker and was much faster and easier.
How strange, I think rice must be different in the UK!
Reading the comments, and knowing that my rice requires a 2:1 ratio of liquid, I added extra liquid (about a cup more), and it made me question my interpretation of your ingredient list, which may be the issue for many. When you say “tin chopped tomatoes” I read that to mean some kind of diced tomatoes. Did you mean crushed or puree, which would be much more of a liquid? I guess when I look closely, I don’t see chunks of tomato in your pictures. You also say drained beans, but don’t say rinsed. Since I was using a can of no salt added black beans, I did that, and just shook them a bit in a colander to try to get some of the bean juice off, but it’ll still add some.
I’m also starting it about 6 hours before I need it since some have had trouble with it cooking in time. My crock seems to cook pretty fast, so it may not be an issue, but I can always turn it off. It actually stays warm for several hours when off.
I have the same question! I just ran across this recipe and got confused about the tin chopped tomatoes
This is what I mean by a tin of chopped tomatoes.
Hi, when I say a tin of chopped tomatoes, I mean these – they’re chunky, but have a fair bit of liquid in them too.
I don’t often rinse my tinned beans, but in this case I don’t think it will matter much either way.
Hi! Did you use dry beans or canned beans. Thanks!
I use canned beans :)
I love the sound of the recipe but I HATE beans. I want to add lentils instead but I haven’t cooked them in the slow cooker before. Would they be ok in place on beans here?
The texture would end up completely different, but you could definitely give it a go! I’d probably use brown or green lentils, as they hold up better than red.
I had the same problem with the rice not cooking for 3 hours on low. I turned my crock pot to high and the rice cooked in an hour. It tastes great!
Oh good! I’d actually forgotten that this recipe was cooked on low haha. Glad you were able to make it work :)
I shall have to try this next time. It was tasty but after 3.5 hours the rice was still uncooked. Ended up adding more water and turning it up. It helped but I shall just start on high next time.
I’m going to add a note to the recipe now to add this suggestion. I hope you enjoyed it in the end :)
I’m so sad. Last weekend I tried one of your recipes for the first time. The cheesy lentil bake. It was wonderful! Today I tried this. I cooked it for 5 hours and my brown rice was still raw. I add an entire container of vegetable broth bc every time I checked on it all the liquid was gone. I like my rice less cooked too, but this was truly hard. Any tips? I don’t ever use white grains. I even used brown rice in the lentil bake and it worked. Do you soak your rice ahead of time?
I’m so sorry Alli! So many people have had success with this recipe, but a few people have had trouble getting their rice to cook in the slow cooker. I’ve made this several times and have never had that problem – I don’t know what the issue could be, other than that perhaps our slow cookers and / or the rice we used must be slightly different?
I don’t soak my rice, no – it just went straight in. You could always pre-cook the rice beforehand and then cook it for a shorter time, although I know that kind of defeats the point of it being a slow cooker recipe! I do have a non-slow cooker version if you prefer: http://amuse-your-bouche.com/veggie-burrito-bowls
Really sorry again, hope it doesn’t put you off trying more of my recipes (just maybe stay away from slow cooker rice recipes!) – glad you enjoyed the lentil bake :)
I cooked the rice, THEN put it in the crockpot with the other ingredients….WOW!!!! GREAT! SOOOO happy to have a good, HEALTHY, VEGGIE, EASY “go to meal!” THANKS so much for sharing! :)
Awesome, glad you found a way to make it work for you! :)
i did the same thing cooking the rise first..i made wraps with this recipe ,,adding salsa and sour cream with the wraps ..delicious thank you
I’ve made this multiple times and I can never seem to get the rice to fully cook. I use brown rice and I’ve cooked it on low for up to four hours with no avail. Any recommendations?
A couple of people have said the same – so strange, I’ve never had any problems! I wonder if our slow cookers are slightly different, or maybe brown rice is slightly different from country to country?! You could just use white rice instead, but it will cook quicker, so keep an eye on it or you might end up with it going mushy. Also, brown rice is always going to end up chewier than white rice – do you have success cooking brown rice on the stovetop? I quite like the chewiness of brown rice but perhaps to other people it seems undercooked?
Is the rice instant or regular whole grain? I bought whole grain assuming that would be better in a slow cooker, but with so many people having difficulty I’m wondering if quick rice was what you intended.
Just normal brown rice, not instant. I’d recommend you try cooking it on high if you think the rice isn’t cooking properly, as that seems to have helped some people :)
Success! I cooked it on high as you recommended, and my rice cooked just fine. Thanks for the great recipe!
Yay awesome! Hope you enjoyed :)
I’m looking at your nutritional information, and I see 80.5 grams of carbs in a serving … Could that be correct?
Hi Marsha, yes that sounds about right! That’s around a third of the carbs that an average person should be eating each day, and since this dish is rice-based, it makes sense!
This looks great! Would I be able to substitute the rice for quinoa?
I imagine so! I’m not sure how long quinoa takes to cook in the slow cooker though, it’s probably a bit quicker to cook than rice, so just keep an eye on it otherwise it might turn to mush!
How would you adjust this recipe for white rice instead of brown? Looks great!
White rice will cook more quickly than brown, and it can go a little mushy in the slow cooker if you overcook it, so keep a close eye on it. I’d probably try cooking everything else for an hour and then add the rice for the last two hours? I haven’t tried it but I’m sure it’s easy, you’ll just need to watch the timings :) Enjoy!