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
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.