Here’s a good one rice salad recipe from chef Yotam Ottolenghi. It brings together brown rice and quinoa with dried pistachios, dried apricots, caramelized onions, and arugula, all tossed in a zesty citrus dressing. This is a great dish for dinner because you can do all the preparation in advance and the flavors and textures are amazing.
A Great Dinner Party Side Dish
I love a dinner party that will impress a crowd without overwhelming the cook, and this recipe fits the bill perfectly. You can make everything prepared in advance, and it’s a great dish to put on the table, with all the colors of apricots, pistachios, and arugula topping the grain.
When I serve this, I always get a lot of requests for the recipe—it’s definitely an important dish to have in your cooking repertoire.
Ingredients
- Rice: Ottolenghi’s recipe calls for it Camargue Red Rice It is a French variety with a nutty flavor. They are amazing but not easily available at local supermarkets. Fortunately Brown Rice great replacement!
- Quinoa: healthy and high in protein, quinoa also brings its lovely fluffy texture to this rice salad.
- White Onion: Chopped and cooked until sweet and tender
- Olive oil: A lot of money goes into cooking onions and salad dressing, so choose a good quality olive oil.
- Orange zest and juice: citrus dressing
- Lemon Juice: fresh is best
- Garlic: minced or minced garlic
- Scallions: slightly chopped
- Toasted Pistachios: for convenience, look for chopped and roasted or roasted pistachios.
- Dried Apricots: Although I usually buy unsulphured apricots to eat, I prefer the color and flavor of the normal orange apricots in this dish.
- Arugula: slightly chopped
How to make Ottolenghi’s Rice Salad
This is the summary of the recipe – for full details and directions, scroll down to the recipe card at the bottom of this post..
There are several steps to this recipe but if you follow my suggested workflow, you can have it all done in about an hour.
- Cook and Cool the Grains: Cook the rice and quinoa in two separate pots. When done, drain and spread on two rimmed baking sheets to cool quickly and avoid going over the grain.
- Cook Onion: While the grains are melting, cut and grind the white onionon in olive oil until soft and beginning to wilt.
- Prepare some leftovers: Put everything in a large bowl. There is no need to make a costume. Simply add orange zest and juice, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil to a bowl, along with cooled rice and quinoa, cooked onions, diced apricots, toasted pistachios, scallions, arugula, salt and pepper.
- Toss to mix: Mix the rice salad and then taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt and pepper if needed.
- Serve
Giving Advice
This rice salad is best served at room temperature. The rice will be chewy, the quinoa fluffy, the crushed nuts, and all the flavors will be more intense.
I have used this dish all year round and on many different occasions – in spring and summer with grilled swordfish steaks or kebabs, in autumn and winter with grilled salmon or fried chicken. I also like to make this as part of a brunch buffet along with a green salad and chicken salad. It’s also a great side dish for Thanksgiving.
Ottolenghi’s Original Rice Salad Recipe
If you are looking for Ottolenghi’s original recipe, it is from his first cookbook, Ottolenghi The Cookbook and the recipes are named. “Camargue red rice and quinoa with orange and pistachios.”
Over the years I’ve been making this amazing rice salad, I’ve made a few changes to the original recipe to emphasize some of my favorite ingredients. I increased the amount of apricots from ¼ cup to ½ cup; I added pistachios from ½ cup to ¾ cup; and I upped the amount of arugula from 1 ½ ounces to 2 ounces and scallions from 4-6. Also, for convenience I often substitute brown rice for Camargue Red Rice. Otherwise the recipe is the same.
This is good, healthy, vegetarian rice salad recipe from Ottolenghi truth is an important thing. If you do this, I hope you will come back to leave stars and feedback. I want to know what you think!
Recipe
Ottolenghi’s Rice Salad Recipe
All Time:
1 hour
Yield:
6–8 servings 1x
Food:
Vegan
Explanation
A good rice salad with nuts, fruits and citrus. This makes a great dish for brunches and dinner parties because you can do all the prep ahead of time and the texture and flavors are amazing.
Slightly adapted from the recipe in Ottolenghi: The Cookbook
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 1 cup raw rice or Camargue red rice (see notes)
- 1 cup raw quinoa
- ½ cup plus 2 spoons extra virgin olive oilseparation
- 1 1 medium white onion, sliced in half
- Grated zest and juice of one orange
- 2 spoons lemon juice
- 1 medium garlic clove, finely chopped or put through a garlic press
- 1 a bunch (about 6) green onions (scallions), thinly sliced crosswise
- ¾ cup dried up apricots cut into small dice
- ½ cup toasted or roasted pistachios, chopped (see notes)
- 2 large arms (approx 2 ounces) baby arugula (rocket), chopped
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt or more, to taste
- ¼ teaspoon fresh ground pepper or more, to taste
Instructions
- In two separate pots, cook the rice and quinoa in salted water following the package directions. Focus on giving it a few minutes in the morning to make sure the grains are soft but still have a bite. Drain them in a mesh colander and spread them on two separate baking sheets so that they cool quickly.
- While the grains are melting, cook the onion in 4 tablespoons of olive oil over high heat until golden, about 5 to 7 minutes.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the orange juice and juice, the lemon juice, the remaining 6 tablespoons of olive oil and the garlic and all the other ingredients: cooled rice and quinoa, cooked onions, scallions, diced apricots, toasted pistachios, arugula, salt and pepper. Toss to combine, then taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt and pepper if needed.
- Transfer the rice salad to a plate and serve at room temperature.
Notes
- Rice: While Ottolenghi’s original recipes call for Camargue Red Rice (a different color with a nutty flavor), good brown rice is a perfect substitute that provides a delicious reward.
- Pistachios: To roast raw pistachios, put them in a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook, stirring constantly, until soft and fragrant, about 5 to 7 minutes. If you want to skip the step of cooking raw pistachios, look for roasted pistachios at the grocery store or order online.
- Nutrition Disclaimer: We do our best to provide optimal nutrition using an online nutrition calculator but our nutritional information should only be used as an estimate.
- Preparation Time: 30 minutes
- Cooking Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: simmer
