Our Christmas Day lunch is a cold meats and salads affair; it's too hot for a roast dinner when it's 40C in the shade in our down-under Summery Australia. (The weather was actually milder this year (at our place) but I had already roasted the chickens on Christmas Eve so no last-minute switch to a hot roast dinner was entertained.
A big bowl of Brown Rice Salad.
Yum!
Amongst the array of salads I made for our family feast was this delicious and wholesome brown rice salad. It's made with healthy brown rice, lots of colourful vegetables, crunchy nuts, fresh herbs and my-favourite feta. The lemon and honey dressing is so very simple. My kind of food!
My version of this salad combines the basis of this recipe, from Katie Workman of The Mom 100 with the currants, nuts and feta from this recipe by Nicola of Eat Well NZ. I reduced the olive oil from 1/3cup to 1/4cup for the dressing and used pecan nuts, instead of cashew nuts, because I had pecans in the pantry. It all mixed together deliciously!
🤎 Wholesome Brown Rice Salad 🤎
*** Omit the nuts if you have a nut allergy.***
Salad Ingredients:
4 cups cooked brown basmati rice
1 cup coarsely grated carrot
1 cup diced cucumber
1/2 cup diced red capsicum
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
1/2 cup chopped spring onion
1/2 cup toasted and roughly chopped pecan nuts
handful (or two) of currants
1 block of your favourite feta cheese
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
Dressing Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon white white vinegar
1 Tablespoon mustard
salt & pepper
1. Mix all the vegetables, nuts and herbs through the cooked brown rice.
2. Crumble in the feta cheese and sprinkle over the currants.
3. Whisk up the ingredients for the dressing and pour over the top of the salad.
4. Toss to combine. Refrigerate in an air-tight container.
I doubled the recipe and made a huge bowl of this rice salad so there was plenty leftover; some to send home with family and some for us to enjoy bowlfuls of for lunch and dinner the next day. Lazy leftovers have to be one of the best things about Christmas Day lunch!
What did you cook for Christmas at your place that you have leftovers of?
Meg
