Low Carb Banh Mi Bowls

If you’re looking for a delicious nutrition-packed meal for dinner tonight, look no further than these low carb banh mi bowls! They’re chock-full of veggies and protein, with all the amazing flavor of a banh mi sandwich without all the carbs!

If you’ve never had a banh mi, they’re a Vietnamese sandwich that uses crusty French bread, fresh and pickled vegetables, herbs and sauces, and chicken, pork, beef, or tofu to create a truly immersive taste and textural experience.

Here, we leave the French bread at the store, but we retain the flavors and textures and increase the nutritional value by adding more veggies in the form of cauliflower rice. Speaking of, can I brag on the nutrition in these bowls for a sec?

Per serving, these banh mi bowls have:

• 128% of your daily value of vitamin C
• 93% of your daily value of selenium
• 30-80% of all your daily B viamins
• 47% of your vitamin K for the day
• 45% of your daily value of both zinc and potassium
• 4g of fiber, and at least 25g of protein (depending on the exact meat you use)

So while these bowls aren’t the absolute lowest in carbs (just under 8g net carbs per bowl) you’re getting a huge bang for your carb buck nutritionally.

There are a few components to this dish, but they’re all super simple and this meal still comes together in about 45 minutes.

Components of the Banh Mi Bowl

Pickled Carrots & Radishes

I know some of you are about to click away from this recipe because you’re thinking “I have to pickle something???!” but stay for just a moment longer so I can assuage your fears. If you’ve never made a quick pickle before, you will be absolutely SHOOK to find out just how easy it is.

All you need are carrots, radishes, vinegar, water, salt, and a little allulose. I bought a bag of pre-shredded carrots because I can’t be bothered to do the extra step of shredding them myself but you can absolutely just take the large side of a box grater and go to town.

Traditionally, banh mi sandwiches are made with daikon radishes but for some reason out here in suburbia when I made this, no one was carrying any near me so I substituted regular radishes. I didn’t mind because they’re rather pretty but if you have access to daikon radishes, just go ahead and shred or julienne them instead of slicing.

All you need to do to make a quick pickle is take the water, vinegar, salt and allulose and heat it until everything is dissolved. Put the carrots and radishes in a glass jar and then pour the liquid over the veggies. Then you throw it in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. You can just make these first before you do everything else and you’re golden. You could also make them a day ahead with no issue.

And here’s a secret. While it’s totally worth it to take the 5 minutes to pickle the carrots and radishes, if you just absolutely can’t some evening, you can just use them raw. It won’t be as interesting to eat, but it’ll still be good. And if you hate radishes, just don’t use them. No one will arrest you.

Pork

Typically, the pork in a banh mi sandwich is going to be sliced marinated pork shoulder. But for ease and frugality we’re using ground pork. If you don’t do pork, ground chicken will substitute like a champ here. For the pork mixture you’ll need:

• Ground pork (or chicken!)
• Minced shallot
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Fish Sauce – I only recommend Red Boat fish sauce as it only has two simple ingredients.
• Coconut Aminos
• A little golden allulose. If you don’t have golden allulose you can use the regular kind.

NOTE: If you’d like to make this paleo instead of keto, you can substitute coconut sugar for the golden allulose and honey for the regular allulose where it’s called for. For Whole30, leave out all the sweeteners entirely.

I like to mix this together after assembling the pickles, and then I let it sit together to let the flavors meld a little while I prep everything else.

Spicy Mayo

Spicy mayo is optional but not really optional, IMHO. If you can’t handle spice you can use regular mayo. The creaminess is really needed here for balance, but if you’re anti-mayo, you could opt for chopped or sliced avocado instead.

I add a couple of extra ingredients (a little vinegar and allulose) to my mayo here to make the flavor profile closer to Kewpie mayo, but you could keep it simpler with just mayo and chili sauce here if you prefer. I use the Everiday sambal oelek. It has very clean ingredients and a great flavor.

The Veggies

Cauliflower is not a typical part of the banh mi sandwich, but here it’s standing in for the bread, essentially. It’s a fairly neutral base that’s full of nutrition and brings the whole thing together. I like to use frozen cauliflower rice for ease, but you can absolutely make your own from fresh cauliflower if that’s your jam.

After that, you need cucumbers and jalapeño. In these pictures I used a vegetable peeler to make ribbons of my cucumbers and then rolled them up all cute but when I make them for myself at home I just dice the cucumbers.

Thinly slice the jalapeños. If you want less spice, get rid of the seeds and ribs. My kids leave these off entirely but I enjoy them.

DON’T FORGET CILANTRO. Ok, if you genetically find cilantro to taste like soap, I guess you can leave it off. In its place, use a combination of mint and Thai basil. But please don’t leave off the herbs. They’re really essential.

Assembling the Banh Mi Bowls

The last step is layering it all together in bowls. And then eating it. And enjoying it thoroughly and planning for the next time you’ll make them because they’re so good.

Start with a base of cauliflower rice in your favorite bowl. Add the pork (or chicken), then the cucumbers, pickled carrots and radishes, and jalapeño. Drizzle with the spicy mayo and finish with cilantro sprigs and a squeeze of lime if you like. Then feel free to devour.

I hope you love these banh mi bowls! If you do, please come back and leave a rating!