Southwest Rice and Bean Salad with Sweet and Spicy Dressing
This southwest rice and bean salad with sweet and spicy dressing is a side-dish knockout. Simple, traditional, and tasty.
Continuing on the theme of the delicious southwest flavors, please let me introduce to you my new favorite salad. Oh, this salad. I could wax poetic about its lovely qualities.
But I won’t. Lucky for you.
My cousin Tami passed it along to me when I had declared the Great Bean Crusade in my home (a fight against the gagging and whining that occurs when beans are served at our dinner table).
The end result of this salad is incredible. Delicious, in fact.
The salad ingredients are traditionally tasty and paired with the tangy, sweet dressing – it’s a knockout. My husband devoured it, and that’s fairly impressive since he’s not crazy about having salad for dinner.
Never in a million years would I have expected the flavors of the dressing to be so melded and perfectly complete. This is definitely going to be a salad to grace our home and future potlucks for years to come.
Thanks, Tami. I owe you. Oh, and my kids even ate a bean or two. So actually, I owe you big time.
Recipe Source: from my cousin-in-law, Tami
Southwest Rice and Bean Salad with Sweet and Spicy Dressing
Ingredients
- 5 cups cooked rice, warm or at room temperature (white, brown, wild rice or a combination)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 cups cooked cubed chicken
- 1 (12-ounce) can corn, drained
- 4 green onions, chopped
Dressing:
- ¼ cup fresh lime juice
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
- ⅔ cup canola oil
- 4 pickled jalepeno pepper rounds, found in the glass jars next to the olives, usually
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
Instructions
- Combine all of the salad ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Combine dressing ingredients in blender until peppers are finely minced. Toss with salad.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
82 Comments on “Southwest Rice and Bean Salad with Sweet and Spicy Dressing”
This was good, but I didn’t love it enough to want it again
Oh my! Made this on a whim tonight (after getting your email about peanut butter popcorn ) and it seriously sang to my soul! So yum! Added avocado, chopped grape tomatoes, red onion, cilantro and ate with tortilla chips. My kids didn’t enojoy it as much but that’s ok. I’ll gladly eat it myself. Thanks Mel!!
Love your additions, Sara. YUM!
All 5 of my family members loved this! I’m not gonna lie—it’s not the prettiest dish around, but after one taste, we were hooked. My kiddo (and husband) that’s sensitive to spice drizzled a little Crema Mexicana on top, and gobbled it right up. I used quinoa instead of rice, and it was outstanding. Thanks for making me look like a rock star yet again!
Haha, so true! Won’t win any awards for looks, but I’m so happy you liked it!
We had chicken enchiladas last night and I made this salad as a side. Since there was chicken in the enchiladas, I left it out of the salad. The enchiladas were okay – not a recipe of yours. But the salad was divine! Good pairing, but next time I’ll skip the enchiladas and use the chicken in the salad! Perfecto!
Made this tonight for dinner and it was fantastic! Followed the recipe exactly and we all loved the flavor combination.
Thanks for letting me know, Jackie! So glad you loved it!
This is my favorite dish. I love the mixture of all the flavors. We make this all the time.
This is a forgotten recipe, but I agree, it is SO good! Glad you love it!
I am so excited to try this and am thrilled about using the leftovers for lunches! Would it be better just to dress as much of the salad as you are going to eat right then or does it absorb more flavor over time? Thanks for all your great recipes!
I actually really love this salad after it has sat with the dressing in the fridge for a day or so. Delicious!
This was Pretty good, I made with leftover brown cold rice , used just one can of black beans . I didn’t have pinto, I used 1 tsp of chili powder instead of 2 because I’m a whimp,I used 1/2 oliveoil and 1/4 water , I didn’t have canola oil. I didn’t add chicken was trying to make no meat meal for once and I didn’t have that either lol and it was great. Nice change for a summer meal my boys won’t probably eat this but I will.
This is an oldie but a goodie! Tried this tonight and am in LOVE!!
We love this recipe! I’m wondering if anyone has figured out a calorie count/nutrition facts for this?
Thanks, all!
Delicious! I added fresh garden chopped tomatoes, cilantro and a dollop of Daisy because well, I can’t not have sour cream with any mexi-dish. 🙂 Husband put it in a tortilla and loved it too – he asked why I didn’t try it soon. Lesson learned…move your recipes to the top of the ‘to try’ pile. Cheers from Kansas
Made this tonight for dinner. One word: DELICIOUS!
After having this pinned for way too long, I finally made it tonight and it is amazing!!! All three of my kids gobbled it up too. My husband loves Mexican food to the point of being happy to have it every day, so finding a great recipe in that genre is as good as gold. Thank you!!
We take a container of this for our lunch instead of sandwiches. This will make seven 14 ounce portions. Our first change was adding 50% more dressing, mixing it in a bowl. We also substituted a diced Red Bell Pepper, not putting it in the dressing but adding it to the other ingredients. The last time we made it we had 3 to 4 extra cups of torn up chicken, so we tossed that in. It made it really good. After putting it together we divide it into portion sized containers, packing one each in our lunch all week. Believe me, we love it. Like the idea of adding diced tomatoes…
Absolutely delish!! I made it vegetarian and halved the salad, but kept the sauce the same. It’s perfectly yummy!! Thank you!!
Mmmm…this one is a favorite at our house. I use a can of green chilies instead of the jalapeno rounds. I also used a mix of brown rice and wild rice and red beans. I am trying to get my son to eat more rice and this is a good way to go! My 2 year old says “This is too nummy Mom”. 🙂
Just made this Southwest Rice and Bean Salad for hubby and I’s lunches this week. It is so good! I make your Brown Rice Boiled and then covered for 10 minutes to go into it. We also like it with the dressing doubled. Thank you for so many excellent (nope, not good but excellent) recipes.
Made this tonight after coming across the recipe on Pinterest. YUM! Looking forward to taking the leftovers to lunch!
Yummy!! Hubby and I love this salad! The dressing is so good!! I doubled the dressing, and added some fresh cilantro. We ended up with a lot of leftovers, but I am sure they will be eaten! I like the idea I have seen in some other comments of putting this in a warm tortilla. Thanks Mel!