This wild rice salad recipe is straightforward and bursting with taste, with crunchy veggies, pecans, cranberries, a zingy dressing, and feta cheese!

Right here’s a hearty fall and winter aspect dish that’s simply begging to leap onto your desk: wild rice salad! This mixture of rice with crunchy veggies, pecans, cranberries, and feta cheese crumbles is right for any event, from the vacations to a easy cozy dinner. A maple Dijon French dressing dressing infuses a tangy taste all through, punctuated by bursts of contemporary parsley. It’s fairly easy to place collectively, and straightforward to make forward. Aspect dish issues, solved!

What you want for wild rice salad

Wild rice is ideal for fall and winter recipes, however do you know it’s not technically rice? It’s the seed from a local grass that grows in lakes and streams within the Northern US and Canada. However because it appears a lot prefer it, wild rice is handled as rice in most cuisines. It was an essential staple to Native Individuals within the higher Nice Lakes space of the US. (I’m from Minnesota initially, so wild rice was a part of the heritage and historical past of the place I lived rising up!)

This wild rice salad makes use of a wild rice mix, which mixes wild rice with varied sorts of rice (most frequently brown). This makes it each extra economical and a greater texture for a salad! Right here’s what you’ll want for wild rice salad:

• Pantry components: Wild rice mix, salt, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, maple syrup or sugar, olive oil, pecans, dried cranberries
• Contemporary components: Celery, inexperienced onions, Italian parsley
• Dairy: Feta cheese crumbles (omit for vegan and add extra salt to style)

Notes on utilizing wild rice mix

A wild rice mix is ideal for utilizing in a salad, as a result of the feel of untamed rice by itself could be quite heavy. Usually wild rice blends will use brown rice, and generally different varieties like purple and black rice. This makes the mix less expensive to provide and it has a softer total texture, making it simpler to eat than straight wild rice.

On this recipe, you should use any package deal marked “wild rice mix.” Cooking directions could differ relying on the model, so use the timing and liquid specified on the package deal if it differs from this recipe.

Does this work with 100% wild rice?

This wild rice salad additionally works with pure wild rice! If all you could have is pure wild rice, you should use that too. The prepare dinner time is actually the identical, however you’ll use extra water and drain extra liquid after cooking (vs letting the water take in within the wild rice mix methodology). Merely make the next modifications:

• Use 2 ½ cups water as an alternative of 1 ¾ cups.
• Simmer 45 to 50 minutes, till the rice is cut up and tender. (A lot of the grains will cut up, however not all: see this picture.) If a lot of the grains are usually not cut up, proceed to prepare dinner, including extra water if crucial.
• As soon as cooked, drain any extra liquid.

Customizing this wild rice salad recipe

This wild rice salad recipe is stuffed with goodness, that includes the autumnal flavors of celery, inexperienced onion and parsley in opposition to nutty pecans and candy cranberries. Wish to swap out a few of the components to make it your personal, or add a few of your favourite objects to the combination? Listed here are a couple of concepts:

• Chopped apple
• Pomegranate seeds (add or use instead of cranberries)
• Dried cherries
• Pumpkin seeds
• Walnuts
• Child arugula
• Contemporary rosemary or sage (use solely very small quantities, to style)

Extra grain salads and aspect dishes

This wild rice salad is the perfect fall and winter aspect. It’s a fantastic fall salad or Thanksgiving aspect dish, it really works for Christmas, and it’s versatile to make use of at any kind of dinner. Pair it with hen, baked salmon or vegetarian dinners for a hearty, filling aspect. Listed here are a couple of extra nice aspect dishes to attempt: