How to Make the Bowl Food That You Just Spent Your Whole Lunch Break Waiting in Line For
This story is part of the Healthyish 22, the people changing the way we think about wellness. Meet them all here.
If you've bought a grain bowl anytime in the past few years, you know that fast-casual restaurants across the country are thinking about their sourcing in all kinds of innovative ways, and we're all eating better as a result. We tapped three fast-casual chefs and restaurant owners for their recipes that are as good for the planet as they are for your lunch.
Farm Burger's Sunnyside Burger with Salsa Verde
When Jason Mann was a rancher, he noticed that most of the buyers for grass-fed beef were fine-dining restaurants looking for specific cuts, inevitably leaving farmers with lesser-known cuts that they couldn't sell. Mann found the solution to this dilemma in the humble burger. Farm Burger—which launched in 2010 and now has 12 locations—sources local grass-fed whole cattle that are broken down in-house. Here, burgers (like the ever popular Sunny Side) are ground from a "whole carcass blend" that includes anything from chuck to flank to sirloin. Offal goes into specials, and fat is rendered to create tallow butter that the burgers are cooked in. Jamie Ager, a fourth-generation farmer at Hickory Nut Gap Farm in North Carolina which sells to Farm Burger, calls the restaurant's approach "a more holistic way of looking at the market."
Sunny Side Burger with Salsa Verde
Homegrown's Grilled Chicken with Quinoa and Matcha Dressing
After working at Per Se and Gramercy Tavern, Michaela Skloven wanted to bring that same sourcing-obsessed mentality to the fast-casual space. When she became the executive chef at Homegrown, a sandwich shop that launched in Seattle in 2009 and now has eight locations, she started a half-acre organic farm to grow produce—like the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes that go into this chicken and avocado bowl. Homegrown staff are invited to spend time working on the farm so they can see first-hand where the food comes from. "The more respect they have for the food, the less likely people are to do something like throw away a tomato," Skloven says. "That's how we change the whole food landscape."
Grilled Chicken and Quinoa with Matcha Dressing
Cava's Black Lentil and Harissa-Roasted Veggie Bowl
Hearty, nutrient-heavy, and endlessly versatile, lentils were a staple for Dimitri Moshovitis, who grew up in Greece. So back in 2006, when he cofounded Cava (which now has 74 locations across the East Coast, California, and Texas), Moshovitis saw them as an obvious base for the Mediterranean spot's bowl-centric menu. He came across black beluga lentils from Timeless Natural Food, a company based in rural Montana, and was impressed by the varietal's rich flavor. But he was more excited to learn that these lentils are enriching the nutrient density of large swaths of land in Montana, a state whose agriculture has historically been dominated by cereal grains that can deplete the soil. Win-win.
Black Lentil and Harissa-Roasted Veggie Bowl
