Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl with Feta

This Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl has asparagus, red bell pepper, zucchini, and Feta; and this tasty recipe is gluten-free and South Beach Diet Phase Two.

Click here to PIN Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl with Feta!

Summer means garden-fresh vegetables, and this Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl is a simple way to cook them without heating up the house.  I made this with my nephew Jake and even though we ended up tasting it at the end of a long cooking day when we had sampled lots of other things, we gobbled this up and I was excited to have the leftovers another day.

The recipe couldn’t be simpler.  Start by cooking brown rice in the slow cooker with vegetable stock, spices, and a chopped onion until the rice is nearly done.  While the rice cooks, chop up vegetables of your choice; we used asparagus, red bell pepper, and zucchini, but you could also substitute other vegetables that taste good with Feta such as yellow summer squash or green beans.  Add the vegetables and cook until they’re tender, then stir in some crumbled Feta and serve, topped with a little more feta sprinkled on top.

Personally I think this would be fabulous for a Meatless Monday dinner!  (To see lots more meatless recipes, click the label Meatless Monday or Vegetarian Recipes in the recipe index or visit my Meatless Monday Pinterest board.)

Chop up a medium-sized onion. Put the onion, brown rice, vegetable broth, Greek Seasoning, Spike Seasoning, and dill weed in the slow cooker and cook for 1 1/2 hours on high.  (I used Uncle Ben’s Brown Rice; other types of brown rice may take longer to cook.) Cut up about 2 cups of short asparagus pieces. Also cut up about 1 cup of zucchini pieces and chop up one red bell pepper.

We cooked the rice mixture for 1 1/2 hours, until it was close to done but still had some bite. If you like your asparagus quite tender, you might want to add it a little sooner than the other vegetables.  We cooked all the veggies about 45 minutes, and the asparagus still had a slight crispness that I actually didn’t mind at all. While the vegetables cook, chop up about 4 oz. Feta, more or less to taste. After 45 minutes stir in most of the crumbled Feta, saving enough to sprinkle a little on the top of each serving,  Enjoy!

More Meatless Dinners with Rice:

Slow Cooker Spicy Brown Rice and Black Bean Cheesy Bowl ~ Kalyn’s Kitchen
Lentils with Brown Rice and Feta ~ A Family Feast
Cheesy Vegetarian Brown Rice Casserole with Broccoli and Mushrooms ~ Kalyn’s Kitchen
Risotto with Roasted Chickpeas, Mushrooms, and Kale ~ Carrots and Cake
Slow Cooker Vegan Brown Rice Mexican Bowl with Black Beans, Bell Peppers, and Poblano-Avocado Salsa ~ Kalyn’s Kitchen

Print Recipe

Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl with Feta

Yield: 4 servings

Total Time: 2 hours 35 minutes

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours 15 minutes

This veggie bowl has asparagus, red bell pepper, zucchini, and Feta.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 C Uncle Ben’s Brown Rice (other types of brown rice may take longer to cook)
• 1 can (14 oz.) vegetable broth (or use 1 3/4 cups homemade vegetable stock)
• 1 tsp. Greek Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. Spike Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. dill weed
• 2 cups asparagus pieces (or green beans)
• 1 cup diced zucchini cubes (or yellow summer squash)
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 4 oz. crumbled Feta

Directions:

1. Chop onion into pieces slightly less than 1/2 inch square.
2. Spray the inside of the slow cooker with non-stick spray or mist with olive oil.
3. Put the chopped onion, rice, vegetable broth, Greek seasoning, Spike Seasoning, and dill weed into the slow cooker and stir.
4. Cook on high for 1 hour 30 minutes, or until the rice is nearly tender but still has a little bite.  (If you’re using a different type of rice it will probably take longer to cook.)
5. While the rice cooks, cut up the vegetables into short strips or cubes about 1 inch square.
6. It’s important to have vegetables in pieces about the same size so they cook in approximately the same time.
7. When the rice is nearly done, add the vegetables and continue to cook on high for about 45 minutes more.  (If you want all the vegetables to be well-done without any crispness, you might want to add the longer-cooking vegetables like asparagus (or green beans) after an hour and 15 minutes, and then add the zucchini (or summer squash) and red bell pepper 15 minutes later.)
8. While vegetables cook, crumble about 4 oz. of Feta.
9. After 45 minutes, check to see if vegetables are done to your liking.
10. When they are, stir in most of the crumbled Feta, reserving a few tablespoons of Feta to sprinkle some on the top of each serving.
11. Serve hot.
12. This wasn’t bad when it had been refrigerated and reheated, but it was definitely best when freshly made.

Notes:

Equipment:

I used a Crock-Pot 3.5 Quart Slow Cooker for this recipe, but any slow cooker that’s 3-4 quarts will work.

This recipe created by Kalyn with suggestions and tasting assistance from Jake.

All images and text ©Kalyn Denny for Kalyn's Kitchen.

Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
The vegetables in this Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl are good low-glycemic choices, but the use of rice makes this limited to Phase 2 or 3 for the South Beach Diet. (I like brown rice in recipes like this, but some charts show that white Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice may be lower-glycemic than the brown rice, so feel free to use that if you prefer.) This is too high in carbs for traditional low-carb diet plans.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use the Recipes by Diet Type photo index pages to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to Follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there. Click here to see Slow Cooker / Pressure Cooker Recipes on my other site!

Nutritional Information?
If you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into this nutrition analyzer, which will calculate it for you. Or if you’re a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.