Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl

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Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl has zucchini, red bell pepper, and Feta for an easy meatless dish that’s a great way to use zucchini! And this has a lot of veggies, so it’s lower in carbs than you might think! 

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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 zucchini and red bell pepper, but you could also substitute other vegetables that taste good with Feta. (And if you have a lot of zucchini that needs to be used, you can use even  more zucchini in this recipe!)

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 dinner and it would also be great as a side dish when it’s zucchini season but you don’t want to heat up the house! 

What ingredients do you need for this recipe?

• onion
• rice, preferably Uncle Ben’s Brown Rice (affiliate link)
• canned vegetable broth
• Greek Seasoning (affiliate link)
• Spike Seasoning (affiliate link) or other all-purpose seasoning blend
• dried dill weed (affiliate link)
• zucchini
• red bell pepper
• crumbled Feta

How to Make Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl:

(Scroll down for complete recipe with nutritional information.)

1. Chop up a medium-sized onion. Put the onion, brown rice, vegetable broth, Greek Seasoning (affiliate link), Spike Seasoning (affiliate link), and dried dill weed (affiliate link) in the slow cooker and cook for 1 hour 20 minutes hours on high. (I used Uncle Ben’s Brown Rice (affiliate link); other types of brown rice may take longer to cook.)
2. Cut up about 3 cup of zucchini pieces. I cut each zucchini into six or eight long pieces and trimmed away the middle white part before I cut the smaller pieces.
3. Chop up one red bell pepper.
4. After one hour and 2 minutes, check the rice; it should be close to done but still have some bite.
5. Gently stir in zucchini and red pepper and cook about 45 minutes more. If you want the veggies more well-done you might want to cook it 5-10 minutes longer.
6. While the vegetables cook, crumble up 6 oz. Feta, more or less to taste.
7. When veggies are done, stir in most of the crumbled Feta, saving enough to sprinkle a little on the top of each serving,  Enjoy!
8. This makes six servings if you’re serving as a side dish or small bowl meal. If the bowl is going to be the entire meal it is probably only 4 or 5 servings.

More Meatless Dinners with Rice:

Slow Cooker Spicy Brown Rice and Black Bean Cheesy Bowl 
Cheesy Vegetarian Brown Rice Casserole with Broccoli and Mushrooms 
Slow Cooker Brown Rice Mexican Bowls 

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Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl

Yield 6 servings

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours 15 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 35 minutes

Slow Cooker Brown Rice Veggie Bowl is an easy meatless meal or side dish from the slow cooker.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 C Uncle Ben’s Brown Rice
• one 14 oz. can vegetable broth
• 1 tsp. Greek Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. Spike Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. dill weed
• 3 cups diced zucchini cubes (see notes)
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 6 oz. crumbled Feta (more or less to taste)

Instructions

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 (affiliate link), Spike Seasoning (affiliate link), and dried dill weed (affiliate link) into the slow cooker and stir.
4. Cook on high for 1 hour 20 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 45 - 55 minutes more.
8. While vegetables cook, crumble about 8 oz. of Feta.
9. After 45 minutes, check to see if vegetables are done to your liking.
10. When they are done to your taste, 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. This wasn’t bad when it had been refrigerated and reheated, but it was definitely best when freshly made.

Notes

I'm a fan of Uncle Ben's Brown Rice (affiliate link); other brown rice may take a bit longer to cook. You can use either zucchini or yellow summer squash. If you have a lot of zucchini this is a good recipe to use even more zucchini!

I used a Crock-Pot 3.5 Quart Slow Cooker (affiliate link) 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.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

6

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 144Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 25mgSodium: 845mgCarbohydrates: 15gFiber: 2gSugar: 5gProtein: 7g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated by the Recipe Plug-In I am using. I am not a nutritionist and cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, since many variables affect those calculations.

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 original South Beach Diet. (I like Uncle Ben’s Brown Rice (affiliate link) in recipes like this, and the converting process makes the rice lower on the glycemic index. This is probably high in carbs for traditional low-carb diet plans, although if you look at the nutritional information you’ll see it’s not as high in carbs as you might imagine.

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Slow Cooker Recipes to 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!

Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This recipe was first posted in 2014. It was last updated in 2021.

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