Rice Salad

[Amelie]

I make this salad when I have bbq's at home and everyone loves it. It's very easy to make and it's delicious.

You need: boiled rice, sweet corn, baby corn, green peas, gherkins, green olives, canned tuna and boiled eggs.
For the dressing, I use olive oil, mustard, mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, pepper and a pinch of caster sugar. That's it.

If anyone tried this before, what was it like?

 

[TopChef]

That would not be my cup of tea. I have had a green leaf salad with a scoop of cold rice in the middle. I don't remember what else was on it, but it was surprisingly delicious. I've never made it.

 

[Amelie]

Hi TopChef I understand. I guess not everyone likes everything. For example my husband loves this salad but he really doesn't like the taste of boiled eggs, so every time I make it I need to only add boiled eggs to my plate.

 

[Hilt]

I will have to try this sometime when my husband is out of the house, he won't eat rice. Boiled eggs we are all okay with but I could not get him to eat rice if his life depended on it.

 

[Ellyn]

If there's such a thing as potato salad and even pasta salad, and croutons, then sure, why not other carbs? Those ingredients sound really good!

I haven't tried that myself, although I have tried several versions of rice-with-stuff-mixed-up-in-it, from Italian risottos to Spanish paella to Indonesian nasi, to just what-did-I-have-yesterday-leftover-oh-rice-fry-it-up-with-garlic-I'm-so-lazy ...so, yeah, I'd say that recipe would work really well.

To keep it a salad side instead of accidentally turning it into a small portion of a vegetarian meal, however, I would recommend using brown rice or red rice instead because they don't stick together-- they stay separate, and chewy more like boiled nuts.

If I knew the secret to making Indonesian saffron rice or pandan rice, I might recommend that too, but I've never made those. (I mean, just in case there's more to it than the obvious, adding saffron or pandan--derp.)

 

[Amelie]

@Ellyn: I have a lot of vegetarian and vegan friends who also enjoy my bbq's (well, they would normally only eat grilled vegetables) but they also like this salad. I always make sure to make a separate portion for them without the eggs and the tuna. Kids love it too.

 

[ohiotom76]

I made a rice salad recently with some leftover imitation crab and some cooked shrimp I had on hand. It was just the shrimp and crab, some celery, green onion, mayo, lemon juice, Old Bay seasoning, and some fresh parsley. I was basically trying to use up a bunch of stuff in my fridge. It was OK, but I could only eat it in small amounts since it was rather rich for some reason. Also the rice seemed to soak up a lot of the moisture so the next day I needed a splash of half and half to moisten it again. If I try something like that again I may use Orzo instead.