This gluten-free brown rice salad is a great summertime meal. It’s cooked on the stove top and uses leftover chicken or cooked ham, and it can be served warm or cold, making it great for picnics or meals at the pool. That’s how I first started using it.
This recipe is on this week’s menu, and since it’s been sitting in my archives for a while, mostly neglected and forgotten, I thought I would republish it today.
Two of my three boys are fair skinned with reddish hair, and they sunburn easily. When they were young, we had a pool membership. The problem was that even with 30 or 50 spf sunscreen, my oldest would burn anytime before 4:00 pm. As a result, 4:00 – 6:00 was our usual pool time. Sometimes, when my husband would join us after work or on Sundays, we would eat dinner there—a cold dinner that I could pack in the cooler.
This brown rice salad was one of my stand-by recipes for such occasions. It still reminds my boys of those days. While it works as a cold meal, we prefer it warm, so I suggest trying it that way first.
Brown Rice Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cup cooked brown rice (variety of your choice)
- 1 1/2 cups cooked chicken or ham, cut in small chuncks (I like turkey ham)
- 1/2 cup green onions, sliced
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup Italian salad dressing (see note)
Instructions
Warm Salad
- Cook the rice and heat the chicken or ham.
- Combine the rice, chicken or ham, green onions and almonds. You could use the pot you cooked your rice in.
- In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise and salad dressing. Pour over the rice mixture and stir to coat. Serve.
Cold Salad
- Use leftover chicken or ham and do not heat it. Follow the directions above and chill before serving.
Notes
Most Italian salad dressing is gluten free, but you should always read the label to verify. Of course, you could always use a homemade version too.
My mom used to make something very similar to this when I was a kid, but it had cheese in it. I think am going to like making this one:)
This is great! It looks delicious and convenient. I like the option of having it warm or cold. Yum!
I made this tonight and it was delicious! Thanks so much for sharing such a simple recipe.
yummy! what a delicious recipe! I want to take it tasty! 🙂
That looks wonderful. Call me sheltered but I never seen anything like this. What a great idea.
This sounds good! I've really been getting into brown rice lately, it's not something I grew up with. Thanks for the recipe.
I made this recipe tonight and it was delicious!
Sounds simple and tasty!
Sounds delish!
Thanks for linking up!
~Liz
What is a good brand of brown rice to buy? I’ve bought some but it’s really chewy and did not taste very good, maybe I did not cook it right?
I think I may try this recipe if I can figure out what brown rice to use.
Moe
I used to make a cold rice dish back in the 80’s but it did not have mayonnaise, and had raisins to add sweetness. Then I was on a trip to Europe and in France at a welcoming party buffet, the same dish was there! It was just rice, raisins, and onions, and maybe ham or something – but I do not remember. it was tasty and easy to have left over for a few days.
Oh yum! I love salads using rice as a grain/ingredient in it- Pinning to make this week! 🙂
In the late 70’s a friend shared with me a recipe for “Chicken Rice-a-Roni salad” with marinated artichoke hearts, green peppers, green olives and scallions, with mayo and curry pwdr. It’s still one of my summer favorites. I made up a GF Rice-a-Roni replacement with rice noodles as the pasta. It’s almost as wonderful as the original, though I am still working on perfecting the seasoning for the Rice-a-Roni flavor that I remember, I am pretty close at this point. If anyone has a good recipe for the Chicken Rice-a- Roni please share…