Rice and Vegetable Salad
Rice and Vegetable Salad is a versatile dish you can adapt to whatever veg and herbs you have. Perfect as a side to a range of different foods and ideal for your buffets, picnics, and barbecues. Following this easy recipe, the salad will keep in the fridge for several days, ready to turn into quick meals when you add protein like chicken, eggs, fish, nuts, or beans.
Jump to Recipe
I think every home cook should have a simple rice and vegetable salad recipe in their repertoire. Hugely versatile in terms of what veg and flavourings you can put in, it can be eaten alongside a wide range of foods.
Almost any vegetable can go in a rice salad. My preference is for crunchy raw veg like onion, peppers, celery, tomatoes, cucumber, carrot, cauliflower, fennel and radish to name just a few. But there’s no reason you can’t include veg you’ve first lightly sautéed in olive oil. Aubergine, courgette, or mushrooms perhaps. The sheer number of veg suited to rice salads also means it’s a great way to use up any odds and ends in the fridge.
I always include at least one type of fresh herb in my Rice and Vegetable Salad too. Finely chopped parsley suits most veg. But I also love mint, chives, tarragon, dill, and coriander leaf, depending on what I’m eating it with. A clove or two of finely chopped garlic usually finds its way into my rice salads too.
I find that a simple dressing of olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper is nicest, and not too much of it. This allows the flavour of the fresh vegetables to shine through.
The combination of veg and rice is a great accompaniment to so many dishes. Which makes it a perfect addition to a buffet table, picnic, or for your barbecues. With veg and carb all in one dish, I eat Rice and Vegetable Salad alongside fish and seafood, chicken, steak, omelettes and frittatas, or golden fried halloumi.
For the simple but tasty, nutritious meal above, I topped a portion with wedges of tender hard-boiled egg and chunks of tinned tuna. So good, it’s one of my favourite warm weather lunches.
MY RICE AND VEGETABLE SALAD
Because this easy rice salad is so versatile, I suggest you use the recipe card at the end as a template. Just adapt it to whatever vegetables you have, and which herbs you like best.
My recipe does make quite a lot of Rice and Vegetable Salad; enough for 4 – 6 generous portions. But, so long as you follow my tips about cooking and cooling the rice then storing the salad in the fridge, it should keep well for 3 – 4 days. So, even if you’re not making it for a crowd, you can dip into it for easy dinners and lunches over a few days.
THE RICE & DRESSING
For my rice salads, I like brown Basmati. It has a good flavour, nicely chewy texture, but still tastes quite light. The brand I buy takes just 25 minutes to cook. Of course, you can use your favourite type of rice and adjust the cooking time accordingly. I start with 200 grams of raw rice which gives me approximately 450 grams of cooked rice.
For salads, you should always add any dressing to the rice immediately after you’ve cooked and drained it. That’s because it soaks up more of the dressing while hot so will be tastier. It should then go in the fridge to cool.
For food safety reasons, it’s important to cool the rice quickly. This prevents the growth of a harmful bacteria called Bacillus cereus. Although many people understand that reheating cooked rice needs to be done very thoroughly, I think fewer realise that if the rice wasn’t cooled quickly in the first place, then it can still be dangerous. Because no amount of reheating will kill this particular bacteria which can withstand high temperatures.
Tossing the warm rice with the cold dressing is therefore a good idea not just for taste reasons. It also helps to bring the temperature down, as will using a large, shallow bowl which exposes a greater surface area to the cool air in your fridge. While the rice is chilling, I also stir it a few times to speed things up.
The dressing is just three-parts extra virgin olive oil to one-part white wine vinegar plus salt and pepper. If preferred, you could swap the white wine vinegar for red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, or cider vinegar.
To help flavour the rice, I add red onion and finely chopped garlic at the same time as the dressing. I add the other veg later so they stay crunchy, but the onion and garlic actually benefit from being mixed with the warm rice.
THE VEGETABLES
For the Rice and Vegetable Salad you see in this post, the other vegetables I included were red pepper, green pepper, celery, tomatoes, and black olives. To ring the changes, you can select any from the list of suggestions up near the top of this post.
I chop or slice into smallish pieces. That way, every forkful of salad should contain an interesting and tasty variety.
FINISHING & SERVING RICE & VEGETABLE SALAD
When the rice is cold, toss in the rest of the vegetables and your chosen herbs. Below, there’s chopped parsley and whole basil leaves. Finally, have a taste and add more seasoning if you think it needs it. Drizzle in a little more olive oil if you want the salad moister, more vinegar for balancing acidity.
Your Rice and Vegetable Salad is now ready to eat, although I think it’s nicer covered and left in the fridge for a few hours. This will improve the flavours and allow them to meld.
As a side dish, the salad will be perfect for large gatherings like buffets, barbecues, or tucked in you picnic cool box, But it’s equally good for easy dinners and lunches. To make it a complete meal, add a protein like meat (my Lamb Kofte Kebabs or Pork Kebabs with Fennel & Orange would be excellent), fish, eggs, cheese, beans, or nuts.
Much of the batch you see in this post we ate for a simple but satisfying dinner. I served the salad alongside smoked mackerel fillets pinged in the microwave plus yogurt mixed with grated cucumber, mint and garlic.
Providing you cooled the rice as described, and the salad’s been stored in the fridge, you can continue eating it for several days as the base for a whole range of meals. Like I said right at the beginning, everyone needs Rice and Vegetable Salad in their repertoire.
HAVE YOU MADE THIS RECIPE? LET ME KNOW BY LEAVING A COMMENT & RATING
Rice and Vegetable Salad
A versatile dish you can adapt to whatever veg and herbs you have: use the recipe as a template to create your own.
Perfect as a side to a range of different foods and ideal for your buffets, picnics, and barbecues. Following this easy recipe, the salad will keep in the fridge for several days, ready to turn into quick meals when you add protein like chicken, eggs, fish, beans, or nuts.
It's recommended that you read the accompanying blog post before starting the recipe.
Ingredients
- 200 g uncooked long grain rice e.g. brown Basmati (see Recipe Notes)
- salt
- 1 medium red onion (skinned and finely chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus extra for serving)
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar (or other mild vinegar e.g. red wine, cider or rice)
- 1 medium red pepper (diced)
- 1 medium green pepper (diced)
- 200 g tomatoes (cut into wedges or chunks)
- 2 stalks celery (sliced or diced)
- 75 g black olives (chopped, halved or left whole)
- 1 small bunch basil (leaves only, torn or left whole)
- 1 small bunch parsley (leaves only, finely chopped)
Instructions
-
Cook the rice.
Put the rice in a fine sieve and rinse under a cold running tap.
Tip into a saucepan, add 1 tsp salt, and pour over boiling water from a kettle to a depth at least twice that of the rice. Stir, then put over high heat.
When it comes back to a boil, stir again then turn the heat down a little and allow to simmer rapidly until the rice is tender, stirring occasionally (approximately 25 minutes or as per pack instructions).
Strain the rice through a sieve and pour over fresh boiling water from a kettle.
Drain well then tip the rice into a large, wide serving bowl (a wider bowl allows the rice to cool more quickly).
-
Add the vinaigrette and cool the rice.
Add the chopped onion and garlic to the bowl along with ½ tsp salt, ¼ tsp black pepper, the olive oil and wine vinegar. Toss well.
Transfer the bowl to the fridge to cool. For food safety reasons (see Recipe Note), it's important to cool the rice quickly: stirring occasionally will speed this up.
-
Add the vegetables and herbs.
When the rice is cold, add all the prepared vegetables and herbs and toss well.
Taste and add more salt, pepper, oil, or vinegar if needed.
-
Providing that the rice was cooked and cooled quickly as per the instructions and kept in the fridge, the salad should keep for 3 - 4 days.
Recipe Notes
Rice. I find brown Basmati rice the best choice for this salad as it has a good chewy texture but is still quite light. However, other types can be used and cooked according to instructions on the pack. If you are using ready cooked rice, then to make the full recipe you will need approximately 450 grams.
Food Safety: cool the rice quickly. This is to prevent the growth of a harmful bacteria called Bacillus cereus. Although many people understand that reheating cooked rice needs to be done very thoroughly, it's just as important to know that if rice isn't cooled quickly in the first place, then it can still be dangerous.
RELATED RECIPES
