I call this a salad but it could also be a side dish. The bottom line is that it is de-lic-ious! Made of brown rice, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, green peas, green onions, pecans, and one of my favorite fresh herbs, tarragon. Great texture and flavor, with a light dressing of lemon juice, mustard and garlic. This is one everyone will love!
Rice Salad with Asparagus and Shiitake Mushrooms
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 mins
- Yield: 4 to 8 (makes about 7 cups) 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup long-grain brown rice
- 2½ cups sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 2 cups asparagus, ends trimmed (and discarded), then chopped into 1-inch lengths
- 2 cups green peas (thawed if frozen)
- 3 large green onions, white and green parts chopped (about ½ cup)
- ¼ cup pecan halves, chopped (optional)
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon
- Dressing:
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon mustard (I like Dijon or stoneground)
- 1 medium clove garlic
Instructions
- Bring the water and rice to a boil in a soup pot over high heat, uncovered. Reduce the heat to low, then cover and simmer for 45 minutes. After cooking, remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes with the lid on, then fluff the rice.
- Toward the end of the rice cooking (or during cooling), add 1 tablespoon of water to a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Once the water starts to sputter, add the mushrooms and asparagus, and cook while stirring for about 5 minutes, adding a little water as needed, until the asparagus is tender (but not over-cooked). Remove from heat.
- Add to the pot of rice: the cooked mushrooms and asparagus, the peas, green onions, chopped pecans (if using), and tarragon.
- Blend the dressing ingredients (lemon juice, mustard, and garlic) in a small blender, and stir into the pot of rice and vegetables. I like to serve this warm, but it can be served cold as well. Garnish if desired with a bit more chopped pecans.
Notes
Mushrooms: I think shiitake mushrooms pair nicely with asparagus, but feel free to use other types as well (oyster, cremini, white).
Fresh herbs: Likewise, I think tarragon goes really well with mushrooms and asparagus, but fresh dill or parsley would work too.
Mustard: If you don’t like mustard, just leave it out; it will still taste great.
To save time, cook the rice the morning of or day before.
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 55 mins
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup (⅛ recipe)
- Calories: 160
- Sugar: 3.6g
- Sodium: 78.4mg
- Fat: 3.7g
- Saturated Fat: 0.4g
- Carbohydrates: 27.6g
- Fiber: 4.4g
- Protein: 5.5g
- Cholesterol: 0
I tried the Rice salad with asparagus and Shiitake mushrooms and found it delicious. Couldn't find fresh tarragon in the store so I substituted dried. I had the nut-free version. The simple Dijon mustard dressing really blended well with the vegetables. I'll be keeping this one on my menu. Thanks for the great dinner.
So glad you liked it Kevin! Thanks for the comment. 🙂
loved it, thank you
Nice dish, though I found 1/4 cup lemon juice to be overpowering. I'll cut it to 1/3 next time. Actually, I was wondering if the handy scaler tool has an option for a 1/2 recipe for those just cooking for one vegan, Cathy? I would love that! Thanks for the yummy, healthy dinner!
Thanks Danielle. 🙂 1/3 is more than a 1/4, so maybe start with 1/8 of a cup and add more to your taste. There is no "halving" option in the scaler, but you can just divide each measurement in half for a half batch. Thanks! 😉
Ha! Clearly I have a math problem; hence the request for automating the half-portion. Oye. Yummier this time around lighter on the lemon. 🙂
I only had cremini and white mushrooms, so used them instead of shiitake. I also added someTrader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute. It was very good! Thanks for another great recipe.
Yay! 🙂 Thanks Howard!
Yum! I made this and subbed the tarragon for lemon thyme. Still turned out great. I love the idea of dressing on a warm dish. It definitely jazzed up the rice.
Thanks Live! 😉
I made this for dinner tonight. Let’s just say success
Thanks Regina! 😉
This recipe is delicious! I ended up using red onions instead, but it was great anyways.
Love this - five stars! I love how simple it is and how I can switch up veggies and add in some other favorites (tempeh or tofu cubes, hummus!, beans, etc). I left out the tarragon and subbed in sugar snap peas for the asparagus (not a fan of tarragon or asparagus), served it over baby arugula, and added a big scoop of hummus on top yesterday and today. Leftovers are keeping well. Thank you!
I truly want to thank you for making my transition to a plant based diet a lot easier! Made this tonight and it was so yummy. Husband loved it as well. Also, it was quick and easy (I used Trader Joe’s frozen brown rice)! Only addition was a couple slices of avocado.
I love your recipes but as a diabetic, we need full nutritional information with fat, carbs and serving size. I would appreciate that so much and so would my 50,000 support group members!
Hi Cindy, thank you for your comment. All the recipes have this nutritional information; apparently I just forgot to add it to this most recent recipe. Thanks for alerting me! I will fix it. 😉
I made Rice Salad with Asparagus and Shiitake Mushrooms, and my husband and daughter both liked it 😋
I’m thankful to serve it warm, and that it’s simple to make extra for next day.
The tarragon flavour combination is a gift. It’s a pleasure to serve tasty food without salt, sugar and oil.
Thank you for the photograph looking appetising in a blue bowl, I appreciate this serving suggestion.
Thank you so much, Alice. 🙂
I was thinking that this might be good warm, too ... it really looks good!
I prefer it warm; plus, warm rice is better than cold. 🙂
🤗Hi! I love you & love your food! Thank you! Hey a lot of the words are cut off on the right side only. I am looking at your blog on an IPhone through Instagram. Hoping you can fix this please! My fave dish of yours is the tuNO salad & cant wait to try this! ❤️
I keep picturing filling this recipe into an acorn squash and baking this. Of course the acorn squash would be cut in 1/2 and both filled.
I would like to ask if the rice recipe (for filling) would or should be cooked (baked) at the same time as when the acorn squash is baked?
And at what temperature and for how long?
Thank you.
Polly
You mean inside the acorn squash, from uncooked rice? That wouldn't work; you need to cook the rice separately in water, as it's very hard. 🙂
I really enjoyed this recipe. I served it with a spinach salad. I didn’t have asparagus so I used steamed broccoli instead. Thank you for sharing!!
Mmm! Thanks Rachel! 😉
This is the first non-soupy recipe I have tried of yours. It is great! Like all of your recipes, the whole is so much greater than the parts. I substituted parsley for tarragon and brown button mushrooms for shitake because my market did not have either one of those. The dressing was so tasty and one I will use on other salads. This tasted even better the next day. Thanks, on to try more of your salad recipes.
Thanks Jan! 😉 Try the Curried Sweet Potato Salad; it's one of my favorites!
I just had this for lunch and it was delicious. I had fresh dill growing so I added that also along with the tarragon. I also had tender asparagus so I did not cook that I just chopped it and added it raw to the salad.
I just received your cookbook and have made a few recipes out of that and they turned out wonderful.
Thanks Cathy