Friday, September 6, 2013

Brown Rice Salad


Ingredients
* 1 1/2 cup long grain brown rice
* 2 tsp salt
* 2 tsp lime juice
* 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
* 2 tsp honey
* 2 garlic cloves, minced (or grated)
* 1 tsp grated lime zest
* juice of a lime (at least 2 tbsp)
* 1/2 tsp ground cumin
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp pepper
* 1 cup of diced sweet peppers (red, yellow, green, orange)
* 1 cup tomatoes, chopped
* 1 avocado, halved, pitted and cut into small pieces
* 1 jalapeno chile, stemmed, seeded and minced
* 5 scallions, sliced thin
* 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, minced

Directions
1. To make the rice, bring 3 quarts of water to boil in a large pot.  Add the rice and the 2 tsp salt.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the rice is tender, about 27-30 minutes.  Drain the rice, then spread it out on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Drizzle the rice with 2 tsp of lime juice and then let it cool completely which should be about 15 minutes.
2. To make the vinaigrette, whisk together the olive oil, honey, garlic, lime zest, juice of one lime, cumin, salt and pepper.
3. Transfer the cooled rice to a large bowl.  Add the peppers, tomatoes, avocado, jalapeno and vinaigrette and mix well to combine.  Let is stand for 10 minutes.
4. Mix in the scallions and cilantro.  If desired, season with additional salt and pepper to taste.  Serve at room temperature, or chill and serve cold.

Notes
This was great!!! Such bright flavors - very summery tasting!  I made this but served the tomatoes and avocado separately to meet the needs my family. Some of us love one but not the other, some don't like either.   Just easiest with a salad like this to put it together with all the communal ingredients and then pass the additional ones for people to include if desired.  Just a  note - for me, I liked the rice texture at 30 minutes, so begin to taste it at 27 minutes and see if you feel the rice is done.  If not, add a few minutes of additional time.

I shared this with a few friends, including a vegetarian, and they also loved it!  We agreed that you could swap the rice for quinoa and probably it would be a great dish as well. Give this salad a try soon!  And if you have leftovers and are having it the next day or so, refresh it with a little more fresh lime juice.  This will bring the salad back to life and won't weigh it down with additional olive oil.  Enjoy!

8 comments:

  1. Ok, my question is to what extent you can taste the honey in the vinaigrette? This salad sounds awesome but I'm highly anti-honey so I'm wondering if I should consider a substitute sweetener. What do you think?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I dislike honey as well, and you would never know there was honey in this recipe unless you read the recipe. I would give it a try as is, and I think you will be surprised!!! Let me know!!!

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