Mexican Rice Salad

I do like Mexican food and given the chance, I eat it quite a bit. But the only thing I have a huge issue with is the spice, I have a food sensitivity to overly spicy food (which sucks because I love the smell and taste of sweet chilli). One day I was doing rice for something and on the back of the Coles rice packet was a recipe for Mexican Rice Salad. I made it and found it was delicious!! It’s addictive; you could stand there with just a fork and eat the whole thing. I thought I would share the recipe for all of those Mexican food lovers out there.

Mexican Rice Salad

Prep time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 20 mins
Serves: 6

Ingredients:

2 cups Rice (cooked and cooled)
2 chorizo sausages sliced into half circles
250gm punnet grape tomatoes halved
310gm can of corn kernels
1 large avocado peeled, chopped
¼ cup coriander chopped
2 tbspn chives chopped

Dressing

2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tspn Paprika
1.5 tspn Cumin (ground)
¼ cup olive oil
1 lime juiced

Directions

1. Cook rice until tender, rinse and put aside to cool.
2. Cook chorizos in a frying pan for 3 – 4 minutes until brown, add tomatoes, and cook 2 minutes to warm thoroughly.
3. Combine rice, chorizo and tomato, corn, avocado, coriander and chives in large bowl.
4. Combine dressing ingredients and toss through salad. Season well with salt and pepper to taste.

If you are vegetarian, just leave the chorizo (sausage) out.

Do you know, I only realized today typing up the recipe that you are supposed to cook the tomatoes with the chorizos? I’ve just been cutting it up and putting it fresh into the salad – tastes better that way anyway.

My adaptations to recipe:

Make dressing first, flavours have time to infuse with each other.
Put tomato in fresh not cooked.
I usually make one cup of rice but keep the rest of the proportions the same.

I was having a mini Mexican fiesta dinner last night with nachos, guacamole and rice salad – here’s a photo of the finished dinner – and yes, it tasted as delicious as it looks. Next time I’m thinking of subbing the nachos for some mini burritos or enchiladas.

My Guacamole

One avocado chopped

One tomato chopped

Juice half a lemon (or lime)

Small bit of onion chopped

Salt n Pepper to taste

3 - 4 drops tobasco sauce

Combine it all up in a bowl and pop it in the fridge.

My Nachos

Doritos

Bottle of salsa sauce

Pork Mince

Cheese grated

Sour Cream

I tend to cook the pork mince with a little bacon and tomato paste but that is just my tastes. I add the salsa into the pork and let simmer. Once that's done, it's a matter of layering: chips, meat sauce, cheese - repeat until desired tower of nachos is completed. If you're vegetarian, you can still make the nachos, just leave the mince and bacon out.

So there is my simple yet delicious mexican fiesta dinner! I could eat it all the time.