Curried Rice Salad with Spinach-and-Citrus Vinaigrette (vegetarian)

[beachgal]

What a yummy spring salad, and an easy way to get your spinach in! Check out the red bracketed suggestions to make this more SBD-safe. This is a vegetarian meal.

Curried Rice Salad with Spinach-and-Citrus Vinaigrette
From Cooking Light

The refreshing vinaigrette balances the rice salad's sweetness.

1/3 cup plain fat-free yogurt
1/3 cup low-fat mayonnaise
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups cold cooked long-grain brown rice
1 cup finely chopped Granny Smith apple
1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup finely chopped carrot
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon thawed orange juice concentrate [This isn't much, so you might be able to use it. What I did was use 1 T of low-sugar orange juice and one packet of Splenda. Other options: 2T of orange-flavored SF syrup or a little orange extract and some sweetener]
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
8 cups torn spinach

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl, and stir well with a whisk. Add rice and next 4 ingredients (rice through carrot); stir well.

Combine lemon juice and next 6 ingredients (lemon juice through 1 garlic clove) in a large bowl; stir well with a whisk. Add spinach; toss gently. Serve rice mixture over spinach mixture.

Yield: 5 servings (serving size: 1 cup rice mixture and about 1 1/2 cups spinach mixture)

CALORIES 312 (17% from fat); FAT 5.8g (sat 0.9g,mono 2.8g,poly 1.5g); IRON 3.8mg; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 157mg; CARBOHYDRATE 60g; SODIUM 478mg; PROTEIN 8.4g; FIBER 8g

Cooking Light, MAY 2001

[beachgal]

O. M. G! This salad was totally, totally divine. DH and I nearly came to blows over who got the last portion. It's really, really good.

I made up the brown rice using Alton Brown's Baked Rice recipe (posted in the recipe forum) and just used the whole recipe instead of measuring out four cups. It made so much that I snuck a portion and froze it ( :shh: don't tell DH!).

The dressing and spinach just make the salad...so don't neglect that part. Yum!