Creamy, spicy red pepper feta dip, meet: today’s absolutely delicious, protein-packed spiced Mediterranean chicken bowls.
I filled these beautiful bowls with flavors inspired by my favorite Mediterranean restaurants in Chicago, and wow, they were everything I wanted and more. This recipe takes just 30 minutes to make and has the perfect amount of spice, freshness, and hearty, savory flavors. Just like your go-to takeout order, these chicken bowls are great for customizing, too!
Check out all those amazing toppings and ways you can make these bowls your own, then get this recipe on your meal prep menu ASAP!
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Everything you’ll need to make these Mediterranean chicken bowls
I love a good build-a-bowl meal like this one because you get the perfect mix of flavors and textures in every bite. Here’s what goes into these gorgeous bowls:
- For the sauce: we’re adding my Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Feta Dip to each bowl for saucy, spicy, savory flavor in every bite.
- Ground chicken: pack in lean protein with deliciously spiced ground chicken. You’ll cool the chicken with diced onion, too.
- Spices: we’re seasoning the chicken with garlic powder, cumin, dried oregano, paprika, turmeric, dried thyme, salt, and pepper. The combination makes the chicken SO flavorful.
- For serving: load up your bowl with cooked rice, roasted chickpeas, sliced Persian cucumber, and pickled red onion, then garnish with extra feta cheese, olive oil, fresh mint, and fresh parsley. I love scooping everything up with warm pita bread!
Make these bowls your own
The best part about these spiced chicken bowls? They’re so easy to customize:
- Choose your meat: feel free to use ground turkey, beef, or ground lamb in place of the chicken! Alternatively, you could cook chicken breast or thighs and add them to your bowls.
- Pick a grain: I love serving everything over brown rice or Jasmine rice, but you could use any grain you’d like, such as quinoa, farro, orzo, or even pearl couscous.
- Add an extra kick of heat: the roasted red pepper feta sauce is meant to add a lovely spice to the bowls, but you could also add homemade pickled jalapeños with the garnishes!
Can I make these bowls vegetarian?
Absolutely! Simply skip the meat and add a can of rinsed, drained chickpeas, or use the spices to season and cook crumbled tofu.
If you have a favorite plant-based meat alternative (like tofu), feel free to cook it in the spices and throw that in!
Looking to try a new sauce?
The spicy red pepper feta sauce takes these bowls to the next level, but feel free to have fun trying out different sauces if you’d like! Here are some more ideas:
- Jalapeño Cashew Cream Sauce (dairy-free)
- Spicy Green Feta Sauce
- Homemade Tzatziki Sauce Recipe
- Roasted Garlic Whipped Feta Dip
- Jalapeño Green Tahini Sauce (dairy-free)
Spiced Mediterranean chicken bowls in 3 easy steps
- Make the sauce. Start by blending all of the ingredients for the red pepper feta sauce, then set it aside while you make the rest of the bowl components. This is a good time to get your toppings ready, too!
- Cook the chicken. You’ll cook your ground chicken in a large skillet with diced onion and all of those yummy spices in a little olive oil.
- Assemble the bowls. Spread some of the feta sauce into your shallow bowl, then add your rice, chickpeas, and ground chicken. Finally, top with cucumbers and pickled red onion, and garnish with extra feta, herbs, and a little olive oil. Serve it up with warm pita, or enjoy as is!
Storing tips
Want to meal prep these Mediterranean chicken bowls for the week? Store each component of the bowl in separate, airtight glass containers: red pepper feta sauce, spiced chicken, rice, and garnishes. Simply assemble a bowl for yourself when you’re ready to eat.
Tools you’ll need
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Get all of my dinner recipes here!
I hope you love these spiced Mediterranean chicken bowls! If you make them, be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked them. Enjoy, xo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
30-Minute Mediterranean Chicken Bowls
Ingredients
- ½ batch Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Feta Dip
- For the spiced ground chicken:
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 pound ground chicken (or turkey or sub beef or lamb!)
- ½ medium to large yellow onion, finely diced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- Lots of freshly ground black pepper
- For serving:
- 2 cups of cooked rice of choice (I love jasmine or brown rice!)
- 1 cup roasted chickpeas (I love Biena) or regular rinsed and drained chickpeas work too!
- 4 Persian cucumbers, halved lengthwise and sliced
- Pickled red onion
- Warm torn pita, for scooping
- To garnish:
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Extra feta crumbled
- Fresh mint leaves
- Fresh chopped parsley
Instructions
- Make the Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Feta Sauce according to the recipe. You'll only need ½ batch for the bowls, so save the rest for snacking!
- Cook the chicken: Add olive oil to a large skillet and place over medium-high heat. Once warm, add in the onions and cook for 3 to 5 minutes until softened. Push onions to the edges of the pan and add the ground chicken, breaking apart the meat with a wooden spoon or meat masher and working the onions in. Once meat is broken apart nicely, season the chicken with salt, garlic powder, cumin, oregano, paprika, turmeric, thyme and freshly ground black pepper. Cook until the meat is fully cooked and no longer pink, about 5 to 7 minutes total.
- To serve: Add a big scoop of the feta sauce and spoon it around nicely on one side of a shallow bowl. On the other side, add in a ½ cup scoop of rice. Then top with ¼ cup of the roasted chickpeas over part of the feta sauce and a scoop of the spiced ground chicken rice in the middle. Top with some chopped cucumbers and pickled red onion. Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil, some crumbled feta and fresh mint leaves and chopped parsley. Serve with warm torn pita bread for scooping and enjoy!
Nutrition
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by: Eat Love Eats
This post was originally published on March 12th, 2025, and republished on May 17th, 2026.
Love this recipe! I am dairy and gluten free so I just left out the feta and pita, and then subbed out the sauce for the Tzatziki Sauce recipe (with dairy-free yogurt). It was both delicious and nutritious!!
Perfect! So glad you enjoyed!
This is basically the homemade version of what makes CAVA-style bowls so addictive — spiced meat, tangy sauce, pickled and fresh toppings all in one bowl. Love that it’s so customizable, that’s the whole appeal of the restaurant format. The turmeric and thyme in the chicken is a nice touch too. I put together a full CAVA menu breakdown at cavaresturantmenu.com a while back for anyone who wants to compare bowl combos and calories, but honestly this homemade version holds its own. Trying it with the pickled red onions next. Thanks Monique!
Even better than the chain version! Glad you enjoyed!
The flavour in this is unbelievable! The combination of spices, with the feta dip on the side, is next level! It’s such an easy and quick meal to put together. We serve it with rice and sometimes sauteed cabbage to add some greens, lots of the feta dip and warm toasted pita. So good! This is on our menu weekly. Thank you for sharing a fabulous recipe!
One of our fav dinners, too! Glad it’s a hit in your home!
Healthy, but really bland. I’ve made it twice and probably won’t make it again.
Sorry you didn’t love this one! I’m not sure which element was bland with over 2 full tablespoons of spices and a salty, briny feta sauce!
I’M 37 AND THIS WAS THE BEST RECIPE I’VE EVER MADE IN MY LIFE! LITTERALLY obsessed and I cannot wait to make this for groups of friends soon! Ty so much! The only thing I added was a hint of seasalt to the red pepper sauce, but that’s probably just a preference, not a need. PERFECTION.
So happy to hear that! Perfect dinner!!
So easy! A great weeknight staple. We double the seasonings and add a can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed) to the chicken.
Perfect! Glad these are a hit 🙂
I love this recipe. I don’t really love feta, and I’m dairy free, so we just use hummus or Muhammara for the base! I also love including roasted sweet potato’s. 🙂
That sounds amazing!
Huge hit in our house, we’ve eaten it at least once every few weeks since the first time we made it. It’s great as-is, the red pepper sauce is fantastic, but also easily customizable with what toppings you’ve got on hand. We’ve also done with tzatziki sauce and that has been good as well.
YES this one’s great for customizing. So glad you all love it!
The dip is incredible but I’d like to share a tip that really helped me: roast the peppers whole in the airfryer. They char so perfectly after about 20 minutes on the roast setting. After, pop them in a paper bag; the steam helps the peels come away from the pepper. Once they cool remove the seeds and skins, let them dry out a bit on a towel as they’re pretty soggy. Good luck! 🙂
Great tip! Sounds delicious 🙂 Glad you enjoyed!
I have made this dinner multiple times now and we have absolutely loved it. My husband even said I could just repeat this every night and he’d be happy. The flavor is amazing! Don’t skip on what you might consider ‘extras’; the cucumber, the chickpeas, the mint, etc. Everything really adds such flavor and texture. You will not regret it!! Absolute 10/10!
So happy to hear that! It’s one of my all-time favorites, too 🙂
This was so delicious and easy to make. The yummy feta,,red pepper sauce came together in a couple of minutes. I almost didn’t make it, but it goes with this so well. I put out the veggies in the recipe and others I had on hand –bell peppers, tomatoes, candied jalapenos and chives and mint from my garden. So perfect to customize your bowl.
Thanks for the great recipe
This one’s SO fun to customize 🙂 Glad you loved it!
Oh my gosh, this was absolutely amazing! Tasted better than a restaurant and was so easy! I already can’t wait for leftovers tomorrow. The whole family loved it, thank you so much!
Absolutely! Glad it was a hit!
Oh WOW! I tweaked only because I wanted more veg and I only had boneless chicken thighs. SO tasty, SO easy. And such an easy recipe to meal prep!!!! So I chopped up my chicken and mixed it all up with the spices. I then sautéed the onions then added red peppers and then I smooshed it all to the side and added the chicken to cook. The bowls are AMAZING! Rice, chicken and veg. Spicy feta dip. Chick peas. A GREAT base for a recipe that you can tweak as you wish. Thanks again!
This one’s great for customizing! So glad you enjoyed!
Absolutely delicious! I made this to take to an outdoor concert. While it was no longer hot, it didn’t matter. It tasted fine being warm. I included everything as written and added some romaine lettuce to the bowls for additional crunch as well as Kalamata olives and cherry tomatoes. The pickled red onions are a must! This is a perfect summer meal!
Amazing! So glad you enjoyed, and great additions 🙂
I made this dish for my family but substituted the onions for pickled beets and the red pepper sauce for taziki and everyone loved it! I served it to my 4 and 7 year old deconstructed and even they loved it! Will for sure be making this one again!
Amazing! This one’s great for customizing 🙂 glad it was a hit with the whole family!
The flavors! The textures! From the flavourful seasonings, crisp Persian cucumbers, roasted red pepper feta dip, and crunchy chickpeas – wow, this meal was so delicious. I used chicken breast cut into small chunks instead of ground chicken and didn’t have the pickled onions. It was a step outside of our usual flavor profiles and this recipe will now be added to my ‘repeats’ list. Even my teen loved it. We used some of the spicy roasted red pepper feta dip on eggs for breakfast the next morning and that was also a hit.
All of the goods in here! Happy to hear it was a hit!
I first made this for a girl’s ranch trip when my job was lunch for 10. Everyone raved and it was so easily customizable. I’m allergic to turmeric so that was omitted, but the recipe was perfect in every way. It’s now my go-to for a crowd.
Amazing! Great idea to prep it for a crowd 🙂
Loved all the flavors and textures in this recipe! The sauce was amazing as well. I will definitely make this again soon!
One of my all-time favs! Glad you enjoyed!
1000/10!!! This receipe was SOO GOOD! I thought I would like it, but it wildly exceeded my expectations. Flavors are A+ and it came together so quickly. Dinner for two plus 4 more meal prepped meals for the week (which held up really well). Will be making again soon!
The best!! So happy you loved it!
I have made a lot of ambitious kitchen recipes and this has to be one of my FAVES! 10/10!!! Do not skip on all the toppings/extras like the roasted chickpeas and pickled onions. All of the flavors work together so perfectly and you do not want to miss out! The leftovers are just as good too. Do not skip this one!!!
So happy to hear that! One of my new favs, too 🙂
The seasonings for the chicken are so good! I’m usually underwhelmed by ground chicken recipes but this is a keeper. I added chicken bouillon paste to my rice water to give it a nice salty flavor which I’d do again. I also made both the red pepper dip & some hummus & marinated the cucumbers in a lemon vinaigrette. While my toddlers & I loved the red pepper dip to snack on, I think we all prefer hummus for the bowl & to keep pepper dip as an appetizer in the future.
Love that! Great idea to mix and match with the dips and toppings 🙂
11/10 best recipe I’ve ever made hands down – SO flavorful, healthy, filling, delicious, beautiful to look at. Seriously could not be more obsessed with this recipe. I was STUNNED when I took the first bite
SO GOOD! Glad you loved this one!!
absolutely delicious. the red pepper feta sauce makes the dish – it has the perfect amount of heat! my family loved this and we will make again and again.
The best! So glad everyone enjoyed!
So good I’ve already made it twice! It comes together quickly, so it’s perfect for a weeknight meal and packed with so much flavor. True perfection!
Such a great dinner!!
This was SO good! I used chicken breast instead and put in the crockpot with all of the seasonings and some chicken broth. After cooking on high for 4.5 hours it shredded perfectly. Even my 7 year old liked it! I made the red pepper feta dip as well. My husband and I agreed this is definitely a repeat and will be great for entertaining. Thank you!!
Great idea to use your slow cooker! Such a great dinner 🙂
This is SO flavorful!!!! From the feta dip, to the meat, to the pickled onions, just wow! You’re so talented! Thanks for gifting us with so many delish healthy recipes!!
Aw thank you! So happy you loved this one!
Quick, delicious meal with lots of flavor. Will be making this again 🙂
So glad you enjoyed!
I have made this a few times already and it’s a fan favorite and our house! Today, I had leftover ground turkey from this recipe and leftover of your healing coconut ginger soup and combined the two and it was sooo delicious!
Amazing!! Great way to use up leftovers 🙂
This is an awesome recipe! I made it for lunch meal prep. Amazing flavor and texture combination and the roasted red pepper feta sauce was the perfect addition.
Perfect meal prep lunch! Glad you enjoyed 🙂
Wow, so flavorful! Very quick too which is amazing. AK always finds new ways to make meal prep crave-able and never boring!
I was just thinking I needed to find a recipe to use my crunchy chickpeas in, so you read my mind 💓
Perfect timing! So glad you loved these!
I’ve never left a comment on a recipe before but I’m here to say this is so good! Healthy, satisfying, easy. Don’t skimp on the sauce! I somehow didn’t have chickpeas so used white beans and was happy with the whole meal!
So glad you loved this one! Great idea to swap white beans 🙂
Yum! I served mine over microwaved white rice for ease, and just regular chickpeas, i love that sauce!! 10/10 🙂
Perfect!! Such a great dinner 🙂
This was an easy, flavorful meal that my whole family loved. I added canned chickpeas while browning the chicken. I served the chicken and chickpeas over rice and topped with chopped cucumber and crumbled feta. So good!
Love it! So glad it was a hit!
Made this tonight exactly as instructed with all the components and it was so delicious! Love all the different flavors and textures. And with everything stored separately, it will be great for lunch tomorrow.
So happy to hear that!