A fresh and healthy salad

This healthy rice salad is for many different occasions. It can be very refreshing in a hot summer day if you serve it cold, but it can be a warm pleasure for your stomach during a cold winter dau if you serve it warm.

Ingredients:

• 400gr rice
• 1 small pumpkin or pumpkin slices (200gr)
• 2 carrots
• 200 gr of peas (preferably in the can)
• 3 mandarins
• 4 slices of ham
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 Lemon juice

Dressing:

• 2 teaspoons Curry
• 3 tablespoons Greek yogurt (not mandatory)

Process:

1. Start by cooking the rice in boiling water or in a rice cooker machine.
2. In a separate pot or in the microwave, wash and steam vegetables. Start by pealing the pumpkin, cut it in small cubes. Now wash and peal the carrots and cut them in small and thin slices. Then use either boiling water to cook them or put the vegetables in the microwave for 10 minutes. They should become softer (the cooking time can vary based on the size of the vegetables). If you have the frozen peas you can add them to the vegetables for 3 minutes, when the other vegetables are almost cooked.
3. Now, clean the fruit. Peal the mandarins and divide them in wedges.
4. Afterwards, cut the ham in small and thin slices.
5. When the rice and the vegetables are cooked, you can add everything in a bowl. Now, you can mix the rice with pumpkin, carrots, peas, mandarin wedges and the ham slices. If you have the can peas, you can add them directly at this point, after having removed their water. They do not need to be cooked. Keep few mandarin wedges and ham slices, so that you can decorate the top of the salad.
6. Now you can add salt, pepper, curry and lemon juice. In addition, you can mix everything together with Greek yogurt.
7. Once, you steered everything, you can proceed with the decoration (see image 1). You can either serve it cold or warm.

Enjoy your meal!

Tips

• I highly recommend to get the peas in the can because the process will be shorter.
• You can use different types of pumpkin. I used the butternut one (See image 2).

Variants:

• You can substitute the curry and Greek yogurt with whatever other spices and sauces you may like.

Gallery

• Image 1 Rice salad with toppings

• Image 2 Types of pumpkin