Cold Rice Salads!

Cold Rice Dishes

Perfect for lunches, side dishes, or pot luck dishes cold rice salads can rock! Use leftover rice or cook your rice the night before. Make sure you use a long grain rice and don’t use too much water! Feel free to use wild rice or brown rice! Rice cooked in chicken or vegetable stock will add a lot of flavor but make sure you use low sodium and add salt to taste later.

These can be made a day or two ahead of time. Just add dressing right before serving.

Cold Rice Salad W/lots of Veggies!

Ingredients:
2 ½ cups cooked rice
1c Broccoli
½ c Peas (fresh or frozen)
1/2c Corn (fresh or frozen)
1c raw tomatoes, seeded and cut into bite sized pieces
1c pea pods or snow peas
2T EVOO
1T of your favorite vinegar (apple cider or balsamic work really well in this)
Dash of garlic powder, onion powder, salt and black pepper (to taste)
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Blanch peas, corn, pea pods, and broccoli (Boil water, dump veggies in until they start to just get soft, no more than a min or two, strain and stick in an ice bath)
Combine everything in a big bowl, toss and season to taste!

Citrus and Fruit Rice Salad
Ingredients
2 ½ c Wild rice (cooked)
½ c red seedless grapes chopped into fourths
½ c apples chopped very fine

Dressing Ingredients:
2T fresh lemon juice
3T fresh orange juice
2T EVOO
2t honey (optional, if you don’t use this add a little orange juice for sweetness)
½ t of both lemon and orange zest (the outside of the peel chopped very fine, don’t use the white part!)
1/4t died or fresh tarragon
Salt to taste

Dressing:
Combine juices in a blender and turn on high
Drizzle in EVOO and honey
Slow down blender and add zest, tarragon, and salt to taste
Add Dressing to rest of ingredients!

Rice and Beans- the cold way!

Don’t give up on this one yet, it is great on summer nights or as a side that you can make a few days ahead of time for taco night!

Ingredients
3c Cooked rice
16oz Black beans (from a can or pre-cooked)
1c (1 medium) bell pepper (your choice of colors) chopped
1/4c finely chopped raw onions OR 1/2c sautéed onions (for a more mild flavor)

Dressing Ingredients
2T Canola oil
1 LARGE clove of garlic minced
Juice of 1 large or 2 small limes
1/2t lime zest
1T Cumin
2T cilantro (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste


Combine juice, zest, garlic and spices in blender
Drizzle in oil
Add dressing to rest of ingredients
Top with grilled chicken breast, sour cream, or eat as a side dish!