Wild Rice Apple Salad

A fall salad is a very different meal than its spring and summer cousins. Fresh, crisp greens give way to heartier, more filling options. Fall salads are a mix of fresh produce and filling grains that fuel the body and comfort the mind as the seasons begin their gradual shift.

This Wild Rice Apple Salad combines the best of all worlds for the seasonal home cook. It can easily be served alone as a hearty main dish or served alongside grilled meats as a delicious side dish. This salad is easily packed into lunchboxes, as well.

The prep for this salad is mostly in the cooking of the rice and the chilling of the final salad. To speed up that process, make extra rice at dinner and use the leftovers to pull this salad together quickly the next day.

Wild Rice Apple Salad is a chilled dish, making it a hearty but cold meal for the still warm days of early Autumn.

For the frugally minded, this dish makes the most of seasonal and often less expensive produce. Tart apples are ideal, but use whatever apples happen to be on sale (or that you can forage!) to increase the value of the meal.

Don’t forget, the salad can easily be doubled or even tripled for an ideal potluck contribution.

An Endlessly Adaptable Dish

The options in this salad are endlessly adaptable to what’s available locally and individual tastes.

Consider these options:

• Use pumpkin seeds or chopped nuts instead of sunflower seeds.
• Substitute shallots for the onions.
• Champagne or herbal infused vinegar work just as well as the apple cider vinegar.
• Sage or rosemary instead of thyme is delicious.
• Add finely chopped carrots, if desired.
• Pears instead of or even in addition to the apples are tasty.

As the fall weather begins to set in, serve up this cold salad that is perfect for warmer Autumn days while also filling the body with healthy wild rice and juicy apples.

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