Brown Rice, Artichoke, Sun Dried Tomato and Caper Salad

Saturday night we had a black bean and garlic sauce vegetable stir fry and I made extra rice so that could use it on Sunday. I decided the rice would make a nice cold rice salad, which was the main component of dinner on Sunday. Much to my surprise I was able to keep the fat percentage down to 11% and yet make a flavorful rice salad. I will be using the 6 to 1 ratio for acid to fat going forward since it worked so well here.

This rice salad gets most of its flavor from the sherry vinegar, which I adore. You could also use red wine vinegar if you prefer. If fat is not a big concern you could add a few diced black oil cured olives, or toasted pine nuts to this salad. Both would be delicious, and would have been included if fat were not an issue for us.

Both my husband and I enjoyed this salad. It would make a great picnic dish since it doesn’t contain mayo or animal products.

Brown Rice, Artichoke, Sun Dried Tomato and Caper Salad
Serves 4 as a main dish

Ingredients:

4 cups of brown basmati rice, cooked and cold
3 tablespoons of sherry vinegar
½ tablespoon of canola oil
14 ounce can of brined artichokes, drained and cut into bite size pieces
12 sun dried tomatoes, finely diced
2 cups of fresh diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon of capers
6 cups of baby spinach, rinsed and spun dry

Directions:

Combine all the ingredients (except the spinach) and toss well to evenly distribute. Refrigerate the rice for a minimum of a couple of hours to allow the flavors to marry. Check for salt and pepper before serving.

To serve, line a bowl with the baby spinach and top with the cold rice salad.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 304.22
Calories From Fat (11%) - 33.55

Total Fat 3.92g
Saturated Fat - 0.53g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 569.04mg
Potassium - 836.18mg
Total Carbohydrates - 60.37g
Fiber - 7.14g
Sugar - 4.82g
Protein - 9g

Comments:

Normally I would have used double the amount of oil in this salad. However, I learned with this salad that it isn’t necessary. I wouldn’t eliminate the oil completely, since fat is required for the body to process fat soluble vitamins. We served this salad over baby spinach for the nutrition. Dark leafy greens are packed with nutrition and we are trying to eat as many of them as we can each week.

This recipe makes 4 large servings. We ate this as our main dish and it was almost too big. With the reduction in overall fat I have been intentionally increasing our serving sizes to keep the calories up.