High Protein Sweet Potato Bowls with Taco Meat

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High Protein Sweet Potato bowl with ground beef taco meat. This is the viral TikTok ground beef bowl that is so full of protein – a whopping 38 grams! And it’s such an easy dinner recipe to make too!

sweet potato bowl with taco meat, pepperoncini, pickled onions and cottage cheese

This high-protein sweet potato bowl is a taco bowl loaded with ground taco meat, lots of hot honey BBQ sauce, and pickled red onions. It’s an easy recipe that requires minimal chopping. Which, on busy weeknights is music to our ears, am I right?

And don’t even get me started on the flavor! It’s smoky from the BBQ sauce, tender roasted sweet potatoes give it a nice base, and it’s topped with a drizzle of pepperoncini liquid and creamy cottage cheese.

If that sounds like a weird combination, take it from someone who was super skeptical, it works. When I first saw this recipe on TikTok, I couldn’t believe the rave reviews. Seriously? Do people eat just about anything these days and call it good?

Curiosity hit, and yeah, I’m so glad I tried it.

Because I’m eating my words, and this sweet potato bowl too.

I did take the liberty of making it my own a bit.

You’ll see that instead of the hot honey used in the original creators’ version, I’m using a smoky hot honey BBQ sauce. And I’m also topping my bowl with pickled onions, jalapenos, or pepperoncini peppers – whatever I happen to have in the fridge. I need something to cut through the richness of the ground beef and the creamy cottage cheese, and the pickled ingredients give it that delicious pop of acid that this recipe demands.

Also, you’ll find me seasoning my sweet potatoes with cinnamon – no it doesn’t taste like cinnamon at the end, but the ingredients work beautifully together to create layers of flavor in the final dish. You could easily swap the cinnamon for ground cumin if you’d like.

Okay, let’s get into this!

Ingredients for Taco Sweet Potato Bowl
How to make high protein sweet potato bowls
High Protein Sweet Potatoes Bowls with Taco Meat Recipe

Ingredients for Taco Sweet Potato Bowl

Ground Beef: I prefer to use 95% lean ground beef for this recipe. This helps keep the recipe low in fat. If you use ground beef with a higher fat content, be sure to drain the excess grease so that the finished dish doesn’t taste too greasy. If you want to make this dish vegetarian (along with it being gluten-free) swap the ground beef with black beans or even chickpeas if you prefer.
Taco Seasoning: You can use store-bought or homemade taco seasoning. If you decide to use store-bought taco seasoning, I like this one.
Sweet Potatoes: are a great choice as a base for this bowl. Sweet potatoes contain both soluble and insoluble fiber and help regulate blood sugar. You’ll need 3 medium-ish sweet potatoes or a total of 1¼ pounds. Peel the potatoes and give them a small dice. You want the potatoes to all be roughly ½-inch thick so that they roast up fairly quickly.
Avocado Oil: We’ll drizzle the diced sweet potatoes with the avocado oil before we roast them. Feel free to use olive oil instead of avocado if you prefer.
Seasonings: You’ll need a handful of seasonings for the sweet potatoes. I like ground cinnamon, garlic powder, chipotle chili powder (or use can use cayenne), kosher salt, and a few cracks of black pepper.
Cottage Cheese: Cottage cheese adds a whopped 9-10 grams of protein per bowl! Feel free to swap the cottage cheese with a thick, creamy Greek yogurt if you aren’t a fan of the texture. it’ll give the bowl a similar flavor without all that texture.
Pickled Ingredients: you can use pickled jalapenos, pickled red onions, or even pepperoncini peppers. All of these ingredients give this the acidic hit that the bowl craves. If you don’t have any of these, you can always squeeze some fresh lemons or lime juice over the bowl.
Avocados: I like to use half of a small avocado per bowl.
BBQ Sauce: You can use my homemade BBQ sauce, your favorite sauce, or this store-bought one that I love to use for these bowls.

close up of taco meat, avocado and pickled onions

How to make high protein sweet potato bowls

Toss it together. Start by preheating the air fryer or the oven. While that’s going, peel and dice the sweet potatoes. Toss the potatoes in a small bowl and drizzle with avocado oil. Then sprinkle the seasonings over the sweet potatoes.
You can bake or air fry. Spread the potatoes out onto a baking sheet. Feel free to use parchment paper or a liner for the air fryer to make clean-up easier. Roast the potatoes until they are golden around the edges and tender in the center.
Make the ground beef. Brown the ground beef in a skillet over medium-high heat. You want to make sure that you crumble as you go. Then sprinkle with taco seasoning and add a splash of water to help the ground beef cook through, and so that the seasoning clings to the ground meat.
Assemble the bowls. Now you’re ready to assemble. Divide the potatoes amongst the bowls then top with ground beef and 1/3 cup of cottage cheese. Add the sliced avocados to the bowl and then drizzle with hot honey. Top with your favorite pickled ingredient and your bowls are ready to serve!

FAQs about this recipe

How do you store leftovers?

Keep the roasted potatoes and the ground beef in airtight containers in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Add the cottage cheese, BBQ sauce, avocado, and pickled ingredients when ready to eat.

What other sauces can I use?

You can use my homemade 5-minute blender salsa, aji verde (Peruvian green sauce) guacamole salsa, salsa verde, chipotle vinaigrette, and so much more! The options are limitless.

I’m not a fan of sweet potatoes, what else can I use?

Try brown or white rice or even my cilantro lime rice recipe.