If you’ve never made crispy rice salad then you are in for a treat! This meal prep, no leafy green salad option is perfect for those looking for amazing flavor, with little effort.
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Whether you are the type of person who doesn’t like leafy greens or you are someone who will never turn away from any type of salad, this veggie packed crispy rice salad is going to be your new dream dish.
I definitely get it, salad is not something that I’ve always in the mood for or sometimes I also am out of any type of leafy green in the house.
If you’re like me then you’re going to absolutely love this spin on traditional salad.
The differing textures, loads of varying flavors and a peanut sauce to bring it all together, there’s so much to love about this dish!
What is Crispy Rice Salad?
Crispy rice, literally cooking the rice until crunchy, has a specific name in MANY cultures. This specific salad takes that idea and puts a spin on it by adding lots of Asian flavors and ingredients and making it into an absolutely amazing salad dish with loads of vegetables.
This is not to be confused with Nam Khao, which is a Laotian dish that features crispy rice balls. When you google “crispy rice salad”, that comes up for this. We never want to take away from another culture, but do want to clarify this is different from that, but with Asian influence in flavors.
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What You’ll Love About This Crispy Rice Salad Recipe
Meal Prep
We know how busy life gets and meal prepping recipes or having recipes that are good for a few days are always a win. Even with mixing in the avocado and mini cucumbers, this recipe is good for 3-4 days afterwards which makes it a great meal prep option.
Zero Waste
You can mix and match so many things into this salad so feel free to get creative with whatever you have on hand, but it’s also a genius way to use up leftover rice in order to make sure that it doesn’t go to waste.
Flavor Heaven
We strive to make sure all our meals are flavor-packed. One of the things we love the most though is when you can level up the flavor of something like salad. Vegans often get a bad wrap for eating so much “rabbit food”; however, this recipe can truly hold the weight of a good meal itself.
Crispy Rice Salad Recipe Ingredients
Brown Rice
We personally love brown basmati rice and it’s what we use the most. We also recommend brown rice over white rice as well.
Substitute: Even though we love brown, feel free to use any day old rice that you have.
Vegetables and Herbs
We are using red cabbage, red bell pepper, avocado, edamame, mini cucumbers, garlic, green onions, basil and cilantro.
Substitute: You can switch up the herbs for things like parsley, mint, or thyme and mix and match your favorite vegetables or whatever you have in the fridge to use up. Also don’t be shy to add in fruit like pineapple or mango.
How to Store Rice Salad Recipe Leftovers
You can place this salad in an air tight container in the fridge. This will last for 3-5 days. You can store in one large container or individually portioned container for meal prepping if you prefer.
What other salads should I try?
More Recipes to Try
🥳 Get the Full Recipe
The Best Rice Salad Recipe
Ingredients
For the Crispy Rice:
- 2 cups pre-cooked rice, cooled
- 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce
- 1 tablespoon chili crunch oil
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 lime (juice from ½ and zest from whole)
For the Salad:
- 5 mini cucumbers, thinly sliced
- 2 avocados, cubed
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 3-5 green onions, chopped
- 2 cups red cabbage, finely sliced
- 1 cup unsalted peanuts, chopped (150g)
- 1 cup edamame, shelled and cooked (160g)
- 1 cup fresh basil, chopped (16g)
- ½ cup cilantro, chopped (8g)
For the Creamy Peanut Ginger Dressing:
- ¼ cup peanut butter (65g)
- 3 tablespoons Olive Oil
- 3 Tablespoons rice vinegar
- 3 Cloves garlic, minced
- ½ lime, juiced
- 2 Tablespoons Toasted Sesame Oil
- 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 ½ Tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 inch fresh ginger, grated (2.5cm)
Instructions
- Make Crispy Rice: Preheat oven to 400˚F (200˚C). Add 2 cups cooked and cooled rice to a bowl, along with 1 tablespoon each chili garlic sauce, chili crunch oil, sesame oil and soy sauce, and the zest from 1 lime and juice from ½ of it. Stir to combine everything evenly. Place on baking sheet and bake for 25-35 minutes or just until crispy.
- While that's baking, to a large bowl, add the 5 mini sliced cucumbers, 2 cubed avocados, 1 chopped red bell pepper, 3-5 chopped green onions, 2 cups shredded cabbage, 1 cup each chopped peanuts, edamame, fresh chopped basil, and ½ cup chopped cilantro. Stir together very well.
- In a small blender, add ¼ cup peanut butter, 3 tablespoon each olive oil and rice vinegar, 3 cloves garlic, ½ lime juiced, 2 tablespoon each toasted sesame oil and soy sauce, 1 ½ tbsps maple syrup, and 1 inch grated ginger. Blend until combined.*Note: If you don't have a small blender, you can do this by whisking by hand, just finely mince the garlic first.
- When rice is finished, let cool and then add to the bowl with the peanut butter sauce and combine so the sauce is evenly all over.
Notes
Video
Nutrition
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! This will last for 3-5 days stored in an air tight container.
Yes!
We have to look at the peanuts and peanut butter, soy sauce and sesame oil.
For the sesame oil, you can use more olive oil. For the peanuts and peanut butter, you can use nut free already that you can. have like sunflower seeds and sunflower butter. Making note of the fact that this will alter tastes.
For the soy sauce – depending on what you can have, you can use a soy free soy sauce, tamari, or coconut aminos.
Perfect balance of flavors and textures! I toasted the rice the day before and it got a little chewy overnight in the fridge, so next time I will toast or re-toast shortly before serving. Amazing recipe!
Thanks so much!
Incroyable cette salade. On l’adore !
Je suis si heureuse de l’entendre ! (Using google translate)
Wow! Such a great salad. I’ve directed several people to your site as a result of their trying it. Thank you for all your work.
This is yet, another amazing recipe! I, as your daughter, don’t care for any peanut butter dressings. Yet, you some how made it compliment the flavoring in the rice. The two of them together makes your taste buds go wild. Great job!! I will be adding this to my regular rotation. Thank you!
Glad you gave it a try!
Holy moly! This dish is PHENOMENAL! I had to make a few adjustments due to what I did and didn’t have on hand (broccoli slaw instead of purple cabbage and a store bought Asian marinade instead of the sauce) but this meal is now in my top 5 of all time!
OMG what a huge compliment, thank you so much for sharing
This salad is so savory and it is the BEST and perfect crispy salad!
so glad you enjoyed it!
this was really yummy. I added some pan fried tofu and skipped the avocado for household preferences. I would probably cook the rice just a hair less next time t because mine was REALLY crispy but that flavors were very lovely.
Thanks for sharing!
For the salad being completely made out of veggies, the flavor is outstanding, the rice gives it such a great texture. This will not be the last time I make this every recipe. every recipe that I have tried from Makeitfaryfree has been phenomenal. My favorite recipe site. I recommend you try this you will not be disappointed..
Omg thank you so much for that!