8 Great Seafood Bowls for Autumn

Like a meze platter or charcuterie board, a grain and/or noodle bowl combines separately prepared elements into one dish, creating a novel combination of textures and flavors in each bite. Their ease of assembly makes them an ideal candidate for quick weeknight dinners, lunch at your desk, or weekly meal prep. To ease your (perhaps reluctant) transition into cooler weather, we’ve put together a list of our favorite fresh, autumnal seafood bowls. There’s no need to choose between tasty, easy, or immune-boosting, because they do it all.

Our Salmon Donburi Bowl riffs on a Japanese staple, unadon, which pairs grilled eel and steamed rice with a sweet, soy-based sauce. Keta salmon, as this recipe calls for, is leaner and less intimidating to cook than eel, but no less delicious. Kale is nontraditional but absolutely delicious, not to mention nutrient dense.

It’s understandable to mourn the end of summer produce, but we think fall vegetables are equally exciting. Sweet potatoes, beets, and edamame make an excellent companion to black rice in our Autumn Salmon Buddha Bowl.

With all your favorite taco accoutrements in one bowl, this hearty dish is basically a deconstructed taco, but completely mess-free. Why wait for Tuesday when you could have a taco bowl today?

Once you learn how to make this marinade—the golden quartet of mirin, miso, soy, and rice vinegar—you’ll make it all the time. Not only delicious on salmon, as in our Miso-Ginger Glazed Salmon Bowl, it’s great on sablefish (black cod) too!

In this Spice-Rubbed Sablefish Grain Bowl, sablefish (black cod) is light but filling, making it a perfect quick-and-healthy lunch. Not to mention that quinoa, packed with protein and fiber, is a gluten-free alternative to bulgur or couscous, and the vegetables and herbs are loaded with antioxidant-rich vitamins A and C.

This deconstructed California roll rice bowl (chirasushi)will scratch your itch for sushi, sans labor-intensive assembly.

This salmon kefta bowl is like a lamb gyro, but with a leaner protein (salmon) and a healthier carb (bulgur). With all the fresh Mediterranean flavors you love in a gyro, you won’t miss the pita.

A simple marinade made with equal parts miso, sake, mirin, and sugar will keep in your fridge for weeks, putting miso “pickled” fish within reach whenever you want it. Broiled lightly to crisp, tender perfection, the misozuke fish is terrific served (as here) over earthy buckwheat noodles or with rice.