This Southwestern brown rice salad is served cold. It’s loaded with feel-good ingredients like hearty brown rice, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, and creamy avocado. It’s flavorful but not overpowering- something that you could serve as a side dish or for a light lunch. It would be a great addition to a barbecue or potluck spread because it doesn’t wilt and stays nice and fresh on the table. We love this as a main dish during the summer months with grilled chicken or shrimp on the side.
Ingredient Notes
- Rice – Brown rice is sturdy and holds up well in recipes like this. While you could theoretically make this with white rice, brown rice is definitely what I recommend. If you were to sub anything, I’d go for quinoa or another grain like bulgar before I’d do white rice. To easily make the perfect amount of rice for this recipe, follow these instructions. This can be done ahead of time!
- Olive oil – Use your favorite olive oil. You could also use a neutral oil like avocado oil.
- Honey – Honey adds a touch of sweetness to the dressing. Spray your measuring spoons with a little non stick spray to ensure every drop your measured slides out!
- Garlic and lime – Use fresh garlic and fresh lime juice.
- Jalapeño – The jalapeño adds a little kick to this salad, but it is not overwhelming. Seed or partially seed your jalapeño if you’re worried about heat; every time I’ve made this, I’ve completely seeded the jalapeño and the salad hasn’t been hot at all. I also choose to leave the jalapeño out sometimes (like in these photos!) and it’s great without it as well.
How To Make Southwestern Brown Rice Salad
- Prepare brown rice, and cool completely.
- For the dressing, you’ll need extra-virgin olive oil, honey, the juice and zest of a lime, ground cumin, and some minced garlic. Combine the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together until smooth and combined. Set aside (the dressing can be made and refrigerated up to 48 hours before serving).
- In a large bowl, combine brown rice, halved grape or cherry tomatoes, green onions, cilantro and jalapeno.
- Drizzle the mixture with the dressing, toss together, and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the avocado last of all so it doesn’t fall apart. If you’re prepping the salad a few hours ahead, save the avocado and add right before serving.
Tips & Serving Suggestions
- This salad is perfect for a potluck, a lunch event, or alongside grilled meats and veggies at a barbecue.
- This salad will stay good in the fridge for 2 – 3 days. However, with the addition of avocado, the shelf life will be significantly shorter. If you’re making a big batch of this for meal prepping purposes, we recommend adding fresh avocado to your individual portion just before serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. You can prepare your rice a day or two ahead of time, as well as the dressing. Chop your other ingredients the day of, and wait to dice and add your avocado until right before serving. Sometimes dressings with fresh citrus juices can lose their tang if made ahead, so another squirt of fresh lime juice when tossing everything together wouldn’t hurt.
Yes, it’s generally recommended to rinse brown rice before cooking, though it’s not strictly necessary. Rinsing helps remove surface starch and any dust or debris, resulting in fluffier and less sticky rice. While some nutrients might be lost during rinsing, the benefits of a better texture often outweigh this.
We do not recommend short grain rice for this recipe. The main difference between brown long-grain and brown short-grain rice lies in their texture and starch content, which affects how they cook and how they are used in various dishes. Brown long-grain rice is generally more fluffy and separate when cooked, while brown short-grain rice tends to be moist, sticky, and clumpy.
Southwestern Brown Rice Salad
Equipment
Ingredients
Brown Rice
- 1 ½ cups brown rice long grain
- 12 cups water 3 quarts
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons vinegar or citrus juice
Salad
- 2 ½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- juice of 1 lime about 2 tablespoons
- zest of 1 lime
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 2 cloves garlic pressed or very finely minced
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- 10 ounces grape tomatoes halved
- 1 jalapeno seeded and finely minced (optional, if you’d like to leave out)
- ¼ cup cilantro chopped
- 5-7 green onions chopped
- 1 avocado, medium peeled and diced
Instructions
Brown Rice
- Fill a large pot with the 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil. While the water is coming to a boil, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- When the water is boiling, add the salt and rice and cook uncovered for 22-25 minutes (or until the rice is tender), stirring occasionally. Drain in a fine-mesh strainer and spread evenly over the prepared baking sheet.
- Drizzle with the citrus juice or vinegar and toss to combine. Let sit for a few minutes for water to drain completely and then transfer to a serving dish to serve or cover and store in the refrigerator. Cool completely.
Salad
- In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, lime juice, lime zest, honey, garlic, and cumin. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, gently toss together the rice, tomato, jalapeno, cilantro, and green onions. Drizzle with the dressing and salt and pepper to taste. Gently toss in avocado, and serve immediately, or refrigerate.Note: I like to mix everything but the avocado, and chill for a couple hours before serving. Just toss the avocado in before you serve so it stays nice and green.
Questions & Reviews
This was delicious! You know you’ve got a winner on your hands when the 6 yr old asks if you can pack it in her lunch tomorrow! 🙂 Alas, the 10 and 8 yr olds weren’t fans, but that’s coming from kids that think anything remotely healthy is gross, haha!
This salad is great! I’ve made it THREE times in the last week. And if you prep a bunch of it and keep separate in the fridge, you can throw it together super quick too. To fill it up, I added whatever veggies I had – corn, cucumbers, beans…and Tonight, I didn’t have rice, so I put it all over lettuce instead. I also let the cilantro marinade in the olive oil and lime juice while i made the salad. Delicious!
I have a question, when I make the rice do I pour the vinegar or citrus juice over the rice on a baking sheet IN ADDITION to the dressing above? Or does the dressing replace the aforementioned vinegar or citrus juice?
I am so with you on lunch. I HATE lunch. I think we should just skip that hour every day. This looks delicious. Thanks for another winning recipe.
This salad recipe looks absolutely fabulous. Question: I am not a fan of avocado. What else would you recommend to put in place of avocados in this recipe?
You could just leave it out, or maybe add 1/2 cup of drained and rinsed black beans? Hope that helps!
Well, that was yummy! Thanks for a very versatile and tasty recipe. I think the vinaigrette was what made it really shine. This is also a great meal for kids to make (I just cooked the rice and minced the garlic — my 8-year-old did the rest).
Question: do you know how many cups of cooked rice the brown rice recipe makes? I love brown rice, but hate heating up my kitchen (I live in AZ) so I make brown rice in bulk and freeze it in 4-cup freezer bags. I’m just wondering how much prepared rice to use. Thanks.
I am going to make this. It looks delish!
Keep the healthy recipes coming!!!
Just made this for lunch! Threw it over some arugula – very tasty and healthy!
I struggle with lunches too and this looks perfect!
We just got back from a week long vacation too, and this was exactly what we needed. The flavors are so, so good. The brown rice took more like 30-35 minutes though, and is still slightly under cooked.
I must have grown some really angry jalapenos this year because I only put one small completely-seeded jalapeno in the salad and it’s knockin’ my socks off! I just added some cucumber to see if that will cool it off a bit. At any rate, it’s delicioso!
Wow! I would make this into an entree by topping it with your Taco Chicken.
So I’m an Ohio girl and just moved to the low country of South Carolina. All it takes is a few minutes before I’m sweating and feel dehydrated. It’s so HOT! And humid! Will definitely try this recipe. It sounds delicious… Thank you!!
That looks so delicious! I can picture me eating it for lunch right now. Hmmm, I have all the ingredients but the avocado.
Thank you. Perhaps it was there the whole time and I just missed it . . . in any case, it’s printed now.
Sounds delicious! We just got back from a vacation, too, so anything FRESH sounds amazing. This will be dinner as soon as my avocados are ripe.
@Beth
I see a “Print this” link on the recipe.
Please will you add the “Print this” link to this recipe? I’d love to try it and want to print it.
Thanks!
I looove recipe like this! To make it a complete meal, I often use quinoa instead of rice or add some kind of protein like tuna, ham, hard boiled eggs or rotisserie chicken to the mix.
A quick an easy lunch for me! I usually make a big batch with a relatively mild dressing (like lemon and olive oil) and add diffrent flavors throughout the week to mix it up. Like add a spoonful of pesto or a bit of curry powder/garam masala to feel like I have a different salad. YUM!
Mmm! I love southwest flavors and this looks like a beautiful and healthy salad!
this sounds delicious, bet it would be great in a burrito too with some chopped up lettuce. I actually have all of these things right now, going to make this tonight.
Mmm looks lovely!