Santa Fe Rice Salad

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This Easy Rice Salad Recipe delivers a punch of Santa Fe flavor and vibrant color to your plate! Taste the fresh flavor of ripened tomatoes, green onions, sweet corn, and crunchy orange peppers with the heartiness of back beans. Tossed with nutty brown rice and my Santa Fe dressing, it is a meal in itself.

Spring is here and it’s the time of year I crave all kinds of salads — and not just the green, leafy kind. Chilled Santa Fe Rice Salad is an ideal side dish idea for taco night and is even filling enough for a light workday lunch.

Personally, I love to pair this Mexican rice salad with Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas or as a starter before serving my cheesy and hearty Chicken Black Bean Enchiladas or with Carne Picada.

Want to kick it up a step further? Add delightful toppings like guacamole, sharp cheddar cheese, black olives, or diced avocado.

Ingredient Notes

• Brown Rice — The nutty taste of brown rice is best, but you can use wild rice or white.
• Back Beans — This addition makes the dish hearty and filling. If you want a lighter version, you can leave it out altogether. You can also use kidney beans.
• Grape Tomatoes — Of course, you may dice up a whole tomato if you prefer.
• Fresh Corn — Corn is so good freshly cut off the cob. But, if you cannot find ears of corn, you can use the frozen corn kernels — not canned corn, though. It would be too mushy.
• Orange Bell Pepper — Substitute red or green if you need to, but I love to add the color orange as well as the sweetness of this pepper.
• Green Onions — Use chives, shallots, leeks, or even red onion instead.
• A Lime — Fresh limes are great because you can squeeze the juice and zest the peel. But you can use lime juice if you need to.

• Olive Oil — This provides additional flavor to the rice salad. You can use canola, but it just does not taste as good in this recipe. Or, try mayonnaise for a creamy dressing rather than a vinaigrette.
• Honey — If you realize you are out of honey while making this recipe, try whipping up a little simple syrup.
• Dijon Mustard — Jar empty? Try any mustard, like stone-ground, spicy brown, or yellow mustard.
• Avocado — Not everyone likes avocado, so you can slice it and add it to the side.
• Cilantro — You can also leave this out, as I know some people have an aversion to cilantro. Or just add sprigs so they can remove it.

How to Make Brown Rice Salad

Chilled Santa Fe Rice Salad is a great side dish idea for taco night and is even filling enough for a light workday lunch. Here is all you need to do to make this recipe.

STEP 1 | Prep the ingredients

First, chop, dice, and slice the veggies. Then place the cooked cold rice, drained black beans, corn kernels, bell peppers, tomatoes, and green onions in a large salad bowl.

Aren’t they just so deliciously colorful and summery looking?

Now gently toss all those fresh and vibrant ingredients until just mixed together.

STEP 2 | Make the dressing

Making the vinaigrette dressing is easier than you might think. Just juice the lime right into a small bowl and add the olive oil, honey, Dijon mustard, and garlic, then whisk it all together.

Add some salt once you have tasted the dressing for yourself.

STEP 3 | Zest and dress

Now take the lime and zest it right into the brown rice salad. Pour the homemade dressing into the large bowl and gently toss to cover.

STEP 4 | Cover and Chill

Chill the salad in a covered bowl for a minimum of 30 minutes and then it is ready to serve. This allows the ingredients to absorb some of the delicious dressing and the flavors to incorporate.

Now you can garnish the dish as you serve it with avocado and cilantro. Simply gorgeous!

Frequently Asked Questions

Beyond the Recipe

Cold rice salads are so flexible — you can make them with almost anything you have in your kitchen fridge. So many nationalities boast amazing rice salads, not only the Mexican rice salad version here. For example, you can find Italian, Japanese, or Indian recipes for hearty rice salads.

Try this Mexican version of rice salad and it may just become your favorite!