Rice Salad Recipe

Are you looking for a new dinner side-dish or a lunch time meal?  Try out this simple rice salad; it’s recently become a regular at our home.  It is healthy, colorful, and easy to change it according to what you have in the fridge, thus keeping it from becoming boring.  In addition, it doesn’t take long to make and the young ones can help with the preparations as well!

The  main ingredients for this rice salad are as follows (but keep in mind you can change them to your liking):

•             Basmati Rice, enough for your family
• 1          Bunch green onions or a red onion, diced
• 1-2      Fresh tomatoes, depending on their size, diced
• 4-6”     Cucumber, diced into small pieces
•             Red/Green/Yellow pepper or combination, approx 1, diced

Dressing

•  5TBSP Olive oil
•  1TBSP Red Wine Vinegar
•  1 tsp      Strong Dijon mustard
•                Salt and pepper to taste

 How to make your rice salad:

1)     Cook the rice in a covered pot, covering it with water 1cm above the level of the    rice.     Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.  You will know when it is done when there are little holes in the top of the rice.

2)     Immediately drain the rice well in a strainer and rinse thoroughly under cold running water.  Leave the rice to cool further.

 3)     While the rice is cooking, prepare the dressing and vegetables

4)     Mix the dressing ingredients together.  After the rice has been rinsed and cooled, mix in half of this to the rice and let stand for a few minutes

 5)      Add the vegetables and the rest of the dressing and toss well to mix

 6)      Season with salt and pepper if desired

Try it with some safron added to the rice while it cooks, or a stock cube for extra flavour.

Enjoy!

Are you looking for another warm-weather snack?  Try our Gold Medal Deviled Eggs.  

Hot side-dish more to your liking?  Try Champ or Colcannon!