Megan’s Wild Rice & Kale Salad
This hearty salad features nutritious wild rice, kale, goat cheese and colorful vegetables. Serve it as a light dinner and pack it for tomorrow's lunch!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on July 9, 2024
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I forgot how much I love wild rice in salads. It’s tender, chewy, with an irresistible nutty flavor. I owe my friend Megan Gilmore a thank you for the reminder.
This salad recipe comes from Megan’s new cookbook, The Fresh & Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook. You might know Megan as The Detoxinista, and the creator of this Mexican quinoa stew recipe that has been such a hit.
Megan’s new cookbook offers 75 easy recipes for fresh and healthy, light meals made in your Instant Pot. If you’re obsessed with Instant Pot cooking, you need this book!
I bought my Instant Pot last year (that’s an affiliate link, and Target is offering a discount right now). So far I’ve discovered that my Instant Pot does a fantastic job of cooking dried beans from scratch in about an hour.
Instant Pots definitely have their pros and cons, and are better suited for some types of recipes (like beans, but not multi-step soup recipes since you have to depressurize the pot to add ingredients or blend them). Instant Pots typically take 5 to 20 minutes to pressurize—only then do they start cooking.
Megan’s new book has opened my eyes to more uses for the Instant Pot. For example, she simultaneously cooks vegetarian red beans while rice cooks on the rack above—woah!
My Instant Pot saved the day when I made this salad. I’d already started the rice when I realized that my kale was no longer photo-worthy and had to run to the store for more. I wouldn’t have been able to do that with rice on the stove.
I totally loved this wild rice and kale salad, which features fresh cherry tomatoes, green onion and bell pepper. I cooked the wild rice in my Instant Pot as Megan suggested, and it turned out great.
That said, you don’t need an Instant Pot to cook the wild rice. I’ve provided stovetop instructions in the recipe notes.
Wild Rice & Kale Salad Variations
This recipe seems highly adaptable. You could easily substitute other raw vegetables for the cherry tomatoes and bell pepper. I think shredded raw carrots would great, or roasted cubes of butternut squash.
You could also substitute goat cheese for the feta, or omit the cheese for a dairy free/vegan salad. You can add toasted nuts or seeds, or drained chickpeas for extra protein. I don’t think you can go wrong here.
Please let us know how the recipe turns out for you in the comments, and be sure to check out Megan’s book!
Megan’s Wild Rice & Kale Salad
This hearty salad features nutritious wild rice, kale, goat cheese and colorful vegetables. Serve it as a light dinner and pack it for tomorrow’s lunch! Recipe yields 4 medium salads.
Ingredients
- 1 cup wild rice
- 1 ¼ cups water
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup lemon juice, more as needed (from 1 to 2 lemons)
- 1 clove garlic, pressed or minced
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons maple syrup
- 1 small bunch kale (I recommend the Lacinato AKA Tuscan/dinosaur variety shown here, if you can find it)
- 5 green onions, tender white and green parts only
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes
- 1 medium red bell pepper
- ½ cup crumbled feta cheese or goat cheese, optional*
Instructions
- (This step is designed for an Instant Pot. See recipe notes for stovetop instructions.) Add the wild rice and water to the Instant Pot. Secure the lid and move the steam release valve to Sealing. Select Manual/Pressure Cook and cook on high pressure for 22 minutes.
- While the rice is cooking, in a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper and maple syrup to make the dressing. Set aside.
- Remove the ribs from the kale and finely chop the leaves (you should have about 2 to 3 cups); add the kale to the bowl. Chop the green onions (about 1 cup) and cut the tomatoes into quarters, adding both to the bowl as you work. Seed and chop the red bell pepper and add it to the bowl. Toss the vegetables to coat well in the dressing.
- When the cooking cycle is complete, let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes, then move the steam release valve to Venting to release any remaining pressure. When the floating valve drops, remove the lid and give the rice a stir.
- Add the rice to the bowl of dressed vegetables. (If you haven’t finished chopping the vegetables, you can finish as the rice cools.) Toss well to coat. Megan suggests chilling the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes, but I was hungry and it tasted great to me, so do as you please.
- Just before serving, stir in the feta and taste and adjust the seasonings as needed, adding an extra squeeze of lemon juice to brighten the flavors. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Notes
This recipe comes from The Fresh & Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook by Megan Gilmore, to which I added some notes. Republished with permission.
How to cook wild rice on the stovetop: Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the rinsed rice and continue boiling, reducing the heat as necessary to prevent overflow, until the rice is pleasantly tender but still offers a light resistance to the bite, 40 to 55 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, drain the rice, and return it to the pot. Cover and let the rice rest for 10 minutes, then uncover and set aside while you assemble the slaw.
*Make it dairy free/vegan: Simply omit the cheese. You might enjoy some toasted pepitas (green pumpkin seeds) or sunflower seeds for additional texture and protein.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Thank you for an Instant Pot recipe! Great recipe:) would love to see more IP recipes.
Sue
You’re welcome, Sue! Thanks for trying the recipe and for your review.
This recipe is delicious and i love the idea of adding some toasted pepitas or sunflower seeds
Great, Dan! Thanks for the review.
This sounds delicious! Thank you for the tip on cooking the rice!
You’re welcome, Rylee!
This salad has my name all over it!
:) :)
Delicious! Adding raw fruits and vegetables to your diet is a great place to start.
I agree, Helene! Thank you for your comment, if you would want to leave a star review I would appreciate it.
dasd
Thank you for sharing my book, Kathryne! Hope it helps you get more use out of your Instant Pot. :)
You’re so welcome! It’s so great. I have a feeling I will be getting more use out of it for sure. :)
Thanks for this, I’m always on the lookout for new wild rice recipes!
You can also make wild rice in the oven in a covered pyrex or casserole. Mix a 4:1 ratio, bake covered for 1 hour, stir and add more water if needed. I like my kernels pretty popped, so mine usually will take about an hour and 45 minutes for one cup of rice to four cups stock, but you can pull it out whenever you’d like!
Let me know what you think when you try it! Thanks for the tip on the oven version too, Bridget!
We made this salad last night and it was EXCELLENT! We have been trying to find and make hearty salads as part of our dinner routine this Fall and this fit the bill. We did not use tomatoes and did not have scallions (so used regular yellow onion diced small – only about 1-2 tbsp). We made the rice on the stovetop and although it seemed like a lot before I poured it into the salad, it is the right amount. Like another person said, we can see adding some nuts to this. I am going to have leftovers today for lunch and may actually put a soft cooked egg on top.
Kate – you always have such great recipes! Your cookbook has been a welcome addition to our weekly meal planning. Keep up the good work!
I appreciate you sharing your variation, DeAnn! You’re so sweet. It makes me so happy you are enjoying the blog and cookbook!
Hi – this recipe looks so good. Do you have to have an instapot to make it?
I provided stovetop directions to cook the rice if you don’t have an Instapot! Let me know what you think.
I made Megan’s Wild Rice and Kale salad yesterday for a dinner group…….major hit! Everyone wanted the recipe and all asked what grain was in it. When I replied “wild rice”, a woman said “and I don’t even like wild rice!” It is time consuming to make, but worth it. I doubled the recipe but changed nothing else. I had feta and pumpkin seeds as optional in separate bowls. It served 12 as a side to some chicken lasagna. Thanks Kate for all your recipes, even those of friends like Megan.
Love that! You’re welcome. I love to support a fellow food blogger!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! Made it yesterday and added butternut squash and sunflower seeds in place of the cheese, as you suggested. Has made for 4 days of very filling lunches. I’m excited to try more of your recipes! :)
Oh, that sounds nice! Thanks for sharing, Tatiana.
Cooking food in Instant Pot saves a lot of time and also the dish becomes yummy and delicious after cooking. Thanks for sharing this Instant Pot recipe.
You’re welcome, Elina!
Can’t wait to make this recipe!
Be sure to let me know what you think, Rhonda!
This was phenomenal! I mostly followed the recipe, but upped the veggies and did a little more rice. I added a lot of feta too! I’ll be bringing this for lunch all week. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
You’re welcome, Anna! Thanks for stopping to comment.
This was delicious! I had leftover cooked brown rice and quinoa, 3 cups total. I used that mix instead of the wild rice. Very yummy! I just used 1 tbs olive oil.
Thanks for sharing such a delicious yumminess!
You’re welcome, Madina
Really delicious. Based on my own preferences, I added 1Tbs more of each maple syrup, lemon juice, and olive oil; and subbed pickled cherry peppers for the bell pepper.
Thank you for sharing, Emily!
This one didn’t quite do it for me, maybe because I tried your zesty lemon and wild rice arugula salad first and fell in love with that one, but I didn’t love the flavor combinations on this one.
I’m sorry this one wasn’t your favorite, but I’m glad you loved the other salad. I appreciate the feedback, Bethany!
C’est excellent !! Merci beaucoup
Thank you, Julie!
This recipe is super easy to put together and tastes delicious. I love that it gives Instant Pot directions for the wild rice.
Thanks for your review, Sarah!
Megan’s Wild Rice & Kale Salad is very different from other SALADS
i always made GARDEN SALAD specially with spicy dishes but it looks different from other SALADS ,I am trying this recipe today at home .
This was great for my work lunches. Delicious and didn’t leave me sleepy in the pm. It tasted better on the second day and even without the cheese. Thanks for the recipe!
What a great tasting salad. I cooked the rice on the stove and it turned out perfect. Also, I topped it with some hemp hearts. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
My husband and I both found this delicious, with a great texture. I added toasted pepitas and sunflower seeds. We used Israeli sheep feta. Definitely a keeper!
Thank you for sharing, Bonnie! I’m glad you both were able to enjoy it.
We LOVE this recipe :) I keep the rice and cheese separate until I serve it and just add them to the top of the salad/veggie mix when plating. I store them separately as well for leftovers, as I like to heat the rice up again before adding it. For some reason a warm component to a salad always makes it feel more filling.
Thank you for your recipes, Kate! I haven’t found one I don’t love, and I recommend them constantly to friends and family.
Superb salad! I used black rice that I cooked in my rice cooker and was perfect. The salad dressing with 2T. Lemon juice and 4T. Olive oil seemed unusual…usually in reverse proportions. Tasked too sour so I doubled the oil and added a little extra maple syrup. Delicious and would be beautiful to serve during the winter holidays. I finally bought your cookbook for myself after years of using your online recipes! And recommend to all my friends!
I’ve been obsessed with this salad. I made a large batch of wild rice (a blend) and froze half of it. I make double batches of the dressing and keep it in a glass jar in my fridge. Then when I’m feeling a craving, I just chop up the veggies, run some warm water over the rice in a strainer, dress tye salad and and crumble some feta on top. I bet I’ve eaten this salad 10 times over the past few weeks! Excellent.
This was good, not great for me. Only thing I did different was omit maple syrup. I added walnuts and used Violife feta. Ended up putting some fresh torn basil in to amp up the flavor and would do it every time from now on. It’s worth making again, but I’ll probably keep tweaking it—my husband wants some supremed oranges added next time, and I think that sounds great. Overall, love the cooked rice with the fresh veggies but was just a tad too bland for me as is.
Thank you for sharing how you made this, Deanna! I appreciate your review.