This brown rice salad is delicious way to use the Autumn bounty (squash, parsnips, carrots, and cauliflower!) in a unique way. It works perfect as a light lunch or as a side dish to a larger meal. This is a large recipe so it can feed a crowd or you for many days!
Course Dinner, Lunch, Main Course, Salad, Side Dish
Keyword Brown Rice, Butternut Squash, Carrots, Cauliflower, Parsnips, Salad
Servings 10
Ingredients
3cupslong-grain brown rice
4largecarrotspeeled and diced medium
1lbparsnipspeeled and diced medium
1butternut squashpeeled and diced medium
1headcauliflower trimmed and cut into small florets
1 ⅓cup dried cranberriesroughly chopped
4ozgoat cheesecrumbled
1lemonjuice and zest
1orangejuice and zest
¼cupcider vinegar
1tbsphoney
⅔cupolive oil
1 ½tbspdried thyme
1 ½tbspdried sage
salt & pepperto taste
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Cook your brown rice according the package directions. Brown rice takes quite a while — at least an hour — so get this going first. I used my Instant Pot which made quick work of the brown rice.
Meanwhile, chop all of your veggies (carrots, parsnips, squash, and cauliflower) and put them in a large mixing bowl. Pour 2 tbsp. of olive oil over them and toss to coat them all well. Then sprinkle with 1 tbsp. of thyme and 1 tbsp. of dried sage as well as a couple of hefty pinches of salt and many grinds of pepper. Toss well to combine.
Spread the vegetables in a single layer evenly over two sheet pans. Cook for about 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. The vegetables will be done when they are tender and just turning brown on the edges. Once the vegetables are cooked, take them out of the oven and let cool for 15-20 minutes.
While your rice and vegetables are cooking, combine the lemon and orange juices and zest, cider vinegar, honey, olive oil, 1 tsp. of thyme and 1 tsp. of sage in a pint size mason jar. Add a pinch of salt and some grinds of pepper. Put the lid on the mason jar and shake a bunch until everything is combined into a vinaigrette.
Once your brown rice is ready, scoop it into a large mixing bowl and pour half of the vinaigrette (shake again until combined if the vinaigrette sat for awhile and separated) over the warm rice and fold into the rice. The hot rice will soak up the vinaigrette and your rice will get seasoned. This is similar to the way sushi rice is made. Let your rice cool to room temperature.
Once the rice and vegetables are cool, combine them by folding the vegetables into the rice mixture. Add the dried cranberries at this time. Finally, fold in the crumbled goat cheese.
You’ll have leftover vinaigrette. If you’re saving this salad to serve after it's been refrigerated for any period of time, I like to refresh it with a bit of extra vinaigrette. For the lunches, I spooned some extra vinaigrette into each jar for extra flavor. This salad is best served at room temperature.