Healthy Copycat Grill’d Simon Says Chicken Burger Bowl

Every few weeks the same craving lands: crunchy golden chicken, cool cos lettuce, juicy tomato and a tangy sauce, all stacked inside a proper burger. A takeaway run would sort it in fifteen minutes, but it would also blow a serious hole in the week’s food budget, so this copycat grilld chicken burger bowl is what I make instead. It captures everything good about burger night — the crispy chicken, the fresh crunch, the generous drizzle of sauce — and rebuilds it as a high-protein bowl that meal preps beautifully for roughly the price of a flat white per serve.

One honest note before we cook: this is a homemade, inspired-by recreation. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Grill’d, it is not the actual Simon Says recipe, and I am not claiming to know or reveal any proprietary formulas or secret ingredients. Think of it as a tribute — my best home-cook interpretation of the crispy-chicken-burger-in-a-bowl idea, designed for busy people who want the flavour without the takeaway bill.

Why This Copycat Grilld Chicken Burger Bowl Works So Well

The genius of a deconstructed burger is that you keep every component you actually crave and ditch the one that causes the problems. The bun is the first thing to go soggy in a takeaway container and the first thing to blow out your carb budget without adding much nutrition. Replace it with a scoop of quinoa or brown rice and suddenly the bowl has fibre, staying power and a nutty base that soaks up the sauce in the best way.

The chicken is where the air fryer earns its bench space. A light crumb of panko, a quick spray of oil and eight minutes of hot circulating air gives you chicken that shatters when you bite it, with a fraction of the oil of deep frying. Because the crumb is thin and the chicken cooks fast, it stays juicy inside — the dry, overcooked chicken strip is the number one copycat killer, and the air fryer basically eliminates it.

Then there is the sauce. A proper burger sauce needs tang, creaminess and just enough sweetness to tie the whole bowl together. Greek yoghurt lightened with a little light mayo, Dijon and lemon juice gets you there with far less fat than a straight mayo-based sauce, and it doubles as a dressing for the salad components. Make a double batch; you will find excuses to put it on everything from roast veggie wraps to leftover snags.

Ingredients You’ll Need (Makes 4 Serves)

Nothing here requires a specialty store run. Everything is a standard supermarket buy, and most of it is probably in your pantry already. Prices are estimates based on typical regular prices at major Australian supermarkets; specials will push the total lower.

How to Make It

The whole job takes about 35 minutes, and most of that is hands-off while the air fryer and the rice cooker do their thing. Get the quinoa on first, then the sauce, then the chicken — by the time the chicken is resting, everything else is ready to assemble.

Crumb and cook the chicken

1. Slice each chicken breast horizontally into two thinner schnitzels, then cut into chunky strips about 2 cm wide. Thinner pieces cook faster and stay juicier, and strips are easier to eat from a bowl than whole schnitzels.
2. Set up a crumbing station: flour seasoned with salt, pepper, smoked paprika and garlic powder in one shallow bowl; beaten eggs in a second; panko in a third. Dredge each strip in flour, dip in egg, then press firmly into the panko so the crumb really adheres.
3. Preheat the air fryer to 200°C for 3 minutes. Arrange the crumbed strips in a single layer with a little space between them — cook in two batches if needed, because crowding steams the crumb instead of crisping it. Spray lightly with olive oil.
4. Air fry for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once halfway, until deeply golden and the juices run clear. Rest for 3 minutes before slicing; this keeps every bit of juice inside the chicken where it belongs.

Whisk the tangy sauce

Combine the Greek yoghurt, light mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, a teaspoon of smoked paprika, and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk until smooth, then thin with a tablespoon of water if you want it drizzly rather than dollopy. Taste it: it should be tangy first, creamy second, with a gentle mustard hum in the background. This makes about a cup, which is plenty for four bowls plus leftover for dipping.

Assemble the bowls

1. Divide the cooked quinoa or brown rice between four wide bowls — about 3/4 cup each.
2. Arrange the shredded cos, diced tomato, cucumber and red onion in generous handfuls over the grains. Keeping the components in little piles looks great and lets everyone mix their own ratios.
3. Top with the sliced crispy chicken and finish with a generous drizzle of the tangy sauce. A final crack of pepper and it is ready.

Cost Breakdown: Burger Night for About $6 a Serve

Here is where the copycat really earns its keep. A burger and chips from a takeaway joint easily runs $18 to $22 AUD; this bowl lands at roughly a third of that, with more protein and more vegetables in every serve.

Those are regular-price estimates, and the chicken is the big variable. When chicken breast drops to $10 or $11 per kilo on special — which it does regularly — the per-serve cost slides under five dollars. Stock the freezer when you see it.

Nutrition Snapshot (Estimates Per Serve)

These are rough estimates for one bowl made as written, calculated from standard ingredient data. Your exact numbers will shift with brands and portion sizes, so treat them as a guide rather than gospel.

Meal Prep and Storage

This bowl was built for the Sunday prep session. Cook the full batch of chicken, quinoa and sauce, then portion into four airtight containers with the grains on the bottom, salad veg on top and the chicken in its own little section or a separate small container if you are fussy about crispness. Keep the sauce in a separate jar — dress at serving time, always.

In the fridge, the assembled components (sauce separate) keep well for up to 4 days. The chicken is the limiting factor: to bring back the crunch, reheat it in the air fryer at 190°C for 3 to 4 minutes rather than the microwave, which will turn that beautiful crumb soft. The quinoa can be reheated with a sprinkle of water or eaten cold — both work.

Freezing is a partial option. The cooked crumbed chicken freezes well for up to 2 months; thaw overnight in the fridge and re-crisp in the air fryer. Do not freeze the fresh salad components or the yoghurt sauce — make those fresh on the day. If you want a fully freezer-friendly version, swap the fresh salad for frozen corn and peas added at reheating time.

Easy Swaps and Variations

Gluten-free is straightforward: use gluten-free panko or crushed rice crackers for the crumb, and check that your mustard and mayo are labelled gluten-free. Most are, but it is worth the ten-second label check.

For dairy-free, swap the Greek yoghurt for a plain coconut or soy yoghurt and use a dairy-free mayo. The sauce will be a touch sweeter with coconut yoghurt, so add an extra squeeze of lemon to keep the tang.

Lower-carb eaters can drop the quinoa and double the cos lettuce, or swap in cauliflower rice — it only needs a few minutes in a hot pan with a pinch of salt. If you want more heat, add sliced fresh chilli or a dash of your favourite hot sauce to the yoghurt sauce. And if chicken breast is dear one week, chicken thigh fillets work beautifully here; they are often cheaper per kilo and even harder to dry out.

That is the whole playbook: crispy chicken, crunchy salad, tangy sauce, honest grains, all for the price of a coffee. Make it once and it will muscle its way into your regular rotation — burger night, minus the guilt trip and the delivery fee.