Wild Rice and Edamame Salad

I’m currently sitting and devouring the salad I’m going to outline for you in this post. It is SO good!

Wild Rice and Edamame Salad a la Lekin

My love affair with a Wild Rice and Edamame (Soybean) Salad began on a recent trip to Calgary, where I visited Jugo Juice a lot. There was one nearby where I was staying and working, and I bought this salad 2-3 times over the course of a few days. It was light, but filling, and coupled with a fruit smoothie sustained me during busy days. I vowed to recreate it when I got home – I knew it wouldn’t be difficult.

I’ve been carrying the ingredients list that I tore off of the salad for a couple of weeks now! I decided last night that it was time to go for it. Here it is!

Ingredients list c/o Jugo Juice

Wild Rice and Edamame Salad

Inspired by Jugo Juice

Serves 2

* 1 cup cooked brown/wild rice combo

* 3/4 cup thawed edamame

* 1/4 finely chopped orange (or any) pepper

* 1 finely chopped green onion

* 2 Tbsp sesame seeds

* 1 Tbsp sesame oil

* 2 tsp rice vinegar

* 2 tsp soy sauce

* 1/2 Tbsp sucanat (or brown sugar, optional)

* 1 tsp water

* 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions

1. Cook the rice combo according to package directions. Make sure to use brown rice, because it takes the same amount of time (40-45 mins) to cook as the wild rice. (Plus, brown rice is so much healthier and tastier – why eat white rice ever?) I made lots of rice for later, so I cooked 1 cup of dry brown/wild rice in 2 cups water for 45 mins.

2. While the rice is cooking, finely chop the pepper and green onion.

3. Thaw the edamame according to package directions. Mine took 3-4 mins in boiling water.

4. Prepare the dressing by combining sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sucanat (or sugar), water and cayenne pepper. Stir like crazy in a small bowl to help the sucanat dissolve.

5. Combine 1 cup of cooked rice with the remaining ingredients in a medium sized bowl and mix it all up. Let sit in the fridge for at least an hour for the flavours to blend (if you can wait that long).

Dry rice, ready to cook.

Organic Edamame

Chop, chop!

I left mine overnight, and I can safely say that it tastes much better today for lunch than it did last night when I first tasted it.

I worked hard at getting the proportions of oil/vinegar/soy sauce/sugar to emulate what I tasted in Calgary a few weeks ago. It’s not perfect, and feel free to play around with the dressing. Let me know what you change, if you do!

Yum! It's really too bad you can't smell it through the photo!

If you have a soy allergy, you can probably sub edamame for kidney beans, and soy sauce with liquid aminos. I haven’t tried it, so I’m not sure how it would taste. This was my absolute first time preparing edamame at home. I had only had it before in sushi restaurants. It’s easy as pie! I’ll definitely be making it again.

I’ve been participating in the Oh She Glows Salad-a-Day challenge. Over the past year, I’ve been eating a salad each day almost every day in any case. This isn’t turning out to be as much of a challenge for me. I don’t, however, have a fancy phone to quickly take pictures of my food and Tweet it. Every once in a while, I take a photo with a regular camera (gasp!) and post. This salad is going to get its very own, special Tweet

I love colourful food!

People sometimes ask me if it’s hard to eat “healthy” all the time, or why I work so hard and spend so much time in the kitchen chopping and preparing my food. The thing is, I no longer try to eat healthy. I just do.

Do, or do not. There is no try. – Yoda to Luke Skywalker

Whole foods simply taste way better to me than the crap I was eating before. I love vegetables now, so I spend the time washing, chopping and preparing. Let’s be real, though, throwing together a green salad with some extra veggies, nuts/seeds and dressing really doesn’t take that much time. There’s a balance – sometimes the meals I prepare are time-consuming, and other times I’ll eat slightly seasoned rice+beans+steamed veg. Once you get used to eating foods in their natural state, you begin to crave that instead of, for example, hot dogs and frozen TV dinners.

I’ve become a lot better at opening my fridge, seeing what I have on hand and throwing together a filling, healthy meal in 30 mins or so. Certain things require some prep work (like cooking beans and rice), but I tend to cook big batches of those ahead of time and store them in the fridge for a few days for easy assembly. This has become a way of life, and it’s not at all hard. Food is fuel, and I don’t want to put crap in my tank

With that, much love and Namaste.

~ Kris