Jennifer Garner may be known for her acting, but the rom-com queen is also a pro in the kitchen. When she’s not on set, Garner can often be seen in her kitchen filming videos for her “Pretend Cooking Show”–so it’s no surprise that she whips up some pretty fantastic recipes on the regular.
When I came across this recipe video that Garner dubs her “very favorite lunch,” I knew I had to add it to my weekday meal rotation.
How To Make Jennifer Garner’s Ahi Tuna Brown Rice Kale Avocado Bowls
In a video shared on social media, Garner says that she always tries to make herself a “delicious lunch” during a busy work day—and this Ahi Tuna Bowl with Brown Rice and Kale is her “very favorite.” Not only is Garner’s weekday lunch absolutely stunning and full of flavor, but it’s also super easy to prepare ahead of time, requires minimal cooking, and is packed with nutritious ingredients.
To prepare her fish, the actress makes a marinade with olive oil, lemon zest, thyme, garlic, and red pepper flakes, and sets some of the mixture aside for a dressing to finish the bowl later on. According to Jen, the lemon marinade is so yummy that she will “double or triple” the recipe so that she has some for salad dressing later on.
Once the tuna has marinated in the mixture for an hour in the fridge, Garner sears the fish on both sides to cook it. And if that wasn’t easy enough, Garner prepped her fish the night before. If you don’t have an hour in the middle of the day to wait for your tuna to marinate, you can easily whip up a batch at your convenience and set it in the fridge after searing until you’re ready to eat—it’s tasty warm or cold.
When Garner is ready for lunch, she starts her bowl with a layer of brown rice, which she makes using the KitchenAid Grain and Rice Cooker. If you don’t have this device (which Garner calls “a countertop miracle”) at your disposal, you can easily prepare the rice using a stove or another rice cooker. And if you prefer white rice, or cooking rice in general isn’t up your alley, you can easily swap the brown rice for your grain of choice or even use a pouch of prepared rice instead.
After adding kale and sliced avocado to her brown rice base, Garner tops it with the star of the show: the diced tuna. To finish it off, she tops the bowl with a sprinkle of salt and pepper before drizzling some of the reserved marinade over the top.
Given that quite a few of Garner’s meals are on rotation in my kitchen—including my own favorite, her Brown Butter & Sage Pasta—I’m confident that it won’t be long before the actress’s favorite lunch becomes one of mine, too.
