Thai Coconut Rice Salad

Lots of people make pasta salads at BBQs, which is a shame for me as I’m really not a pasta fan. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single pasta recipe on this blog – shocking! I’m a rice girl through and through, which is why I decided to create a rice salad that was creamy, bursting with flavour, and a perfect replacement for the pasta salad, partly inspired by my travels through Thailand. While I didn’t eat any coconut rice there, I did eat a lot of sticky white rice, and a lot of coconut curry, which just confirmed to me that rice and coconut are a match made in heaven.

I made this rice salad with an almond butter dressing which tastes amazing, but is entirely optional as the rice salad tastes seriously good by itself too. The biggest challenge while making this was trying not to eat the whole bowl of rice in one go.

 

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients:

200g long grain rice
1 can coconut milk
1 cup water
1/2 tsp garlic granules (or 1 tsp crushed garlic)
1 tsp salt

1 small red onion, finely diced
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
150g roughly grated carrot
100g grated purple cabbage
4 spring onions, sliced
1 big handful chopped cashews
1 handful fresh coriander

4 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp fresh minced garlic (or garlic paste)
1 tsp liquid sweetener
1 tbsp water

 

What to do:

• Rinse the rice until the water runs clear
• In a large pot, mix together the rice, coconut milk, water, garlic, and salt
• Bring to the boil, and simmer gently until the rice is cooked and the liquid has all gone
• Meanwhile, grate and chop up your veggies
• When the rice is ready, let it cool for a little while before adding in all the veggies, cashews, and most of the coriander
• Mix together and leave to cool
• Make the almond butter dressing by mixing together all the ingredients in a small bowl. You might need to warm your almond butter up slightly if it’s too thick. Add a little water if needed to get it to the right consistency
• When the rice salad is cool and ready, drizzle the dressing all over it (or mix it in if you prefer) and garnish with a sprinkling of fresh coriander.