Healthy Rice Bowls Right for Schools

Rice Bowls are a smart, nutritious choice for your school lunch program. Students and teachers give them high grades for taste, appeal and meal variety. Enter our contest now.

Adding Rice Bowls to your menu:

• Helps promote healthful eating habits for your students
• Is easy to plan, serve and operationally execute
• Works within ever-tightening budgets as you can better balance lower-cost/commodity ingredients like rice with higher-cost proteins
• Fits the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and MyPyramid recommendations based on whole grain brown rice usage
• Puts you on the leading edge as they are one of the hottest trends in the foodservice industry, with consumers increasingly wanting to “customize” their food options

But don’t just take our word for it:

Chef Jeff Denton, Director of Ponca City School District in Oklahoma, raves about the benefits of offering Rice Bowls:

“My goal was to increase the amount of vegetables the kids were eating and Rice Bowls seemed like the perfect all-in-one healthy meal option. Rice Bowls have since become the biggest hit at our schools. It’s so popular with students and teachers they are now requesting Rice Bowls be served at least once a week.”

Denton’s Rice Bowls are created by choosing from 4 sauces (teriyaki, sweet & sour, hoisin and peanut), brown or white rice, chicken or pork, and a variety of sautéed vegetables. Learn more about Chef Denton’s culinary program.

Another supporter is recent USA Rice Federation Healthy Rice Bowls Content winner Abby Kassman-Harned, Foodservice Director at Tolland High School in Connecticut. She submitted a creative idea for a “Lunch Your Way” Rice Bowls station, where students choose white or whole grain brown rice, a variety of steamed fresh vegetables, beef or chicken, and toppings including bean sprouts, mandarin oranges and Asian sauces.

Kassman-Harned said: “Students love Rice Bowls because they can make choices and it’s something new and different from what they are normally served. Rice Bowls are perfect for me because they fit in with the trend of healthier meal options.”

Rice Bowls are so hot that they were recently featured in the School Nutrition Association's annual “Vote for School Lunch" for K-12 students. Five candidates representing different healthy lunch options competed, with Yumi Rice Bowl among the top contestants. SNA describes Yumi Rice Bowl as “bursting with color, flair and flavor” and notes that “rice-based recipes have soared in popularity [so] the time is now, and the rice is right!”

Need help getting started or want some menu ideas for your operation? Download our "Kids Love...Rice Bowls" brochure:

The brochure offers tips on planning a Rice Bowl station, how bowls can be assembled and suggestions for implementing ethnic, regional american, contemporary and breakfast concepts. Try a Sweet-and-Sour Bowl, Chili Bowl, Pizza Bowl, or Huevos Breakfast Bowl!