As the daughter of a Minnesotan and Michigander, I was raised on wild rice. For one, the long-grain marsh grass (not technically a rice) is a Midwestern staple, originally harvested by Native Americans from streams, creeks, and shallow lakes in the region, and plays a central role in regional cuisine. Growing up, my great-grandma Esther’s wild rice and mushroom side dish always had a place at the table. And chatting with my Midwest friends and family, most know and love wild rice in a warm and earthy format, too. My mom’s favorite casserole was a chicken wild rice hotdish with a gooey topping of mayonnaise, sour cream, and Parmesan cheese. My aunt and cousins always used it in nourishing soups.
It wasn’t until later in life that my mom discovered a cool (literally) spin on serving wild rice. On one of our summer trips to visit family on Lake Minnetonka, my mom found a cold wild rice salad, “the perfect summery side dish,” she recalls, in the deli case at the beloved Minnesota supermarket, Lunds & Byerlys.
Why didn’t my family think of this sooner? High in nutrients and fiber, wild rice is versatile and lends itself well to salads. The grain isn’t sticky and doesn’t clump, allowing it to be easily mixed with other ingredients. It’s also voluminous (quadrupling when cooked!), which helps when throwing together a salad.
“It’s just smokey and earthy and the way you consume it feels like a grain, but it’s very light, you know,” says Minnesotan Amy Thielen, author and host of “Ham Radio: Cooking with Amy Thielen” cooking show and podcast. “And it is a great canvas for salads.”
In Thielen’s 2013 cookbook The New Midwestern Table, she showcases warm wild rice dishes like chestnut wild rice and pistachio dressing. But Thielen is no stranger to cold wild rice salad. She fondly remembers one from the potlucks of her childhood with chicken, dried cranberries and apricots, almonds, celery, and green onion, dressed in a vinaigrette with a touch of curry. “That kind of a salad that you make ahead and chill and have ready to go is most definitely the vibe here in Minnesota,” she says.
I wondered how much of a vibe those wild rice salads actually were. I checked back with the Lunds and Byerlys deli counter and discovered more variations, especially by the season. I found a wild rice salad for summertime with juicy oranges and tart blueberries (recipe below), one with cranberries and squash for the fall, and even a hearty wild rice chicken salad.
Lunds & Byerlys
That was the tip of the wild rice iceberg: On a deep dive through my Aunt Missey’s beloved Minnesota cookbooks like Pot-Luck for 33,000: Recipes for the Great Dayton’s, Hudson’s, and Marshall Field’s Cookoff and The Best of Byerlys: A Recipe Collection From the Test Kitchen of Byerly’s Home Economists, I found all kinds of wonderful Midwest salads featuring our hometown grain hero.
I found one with shrimp and cruciferous veggies dressed with a mixture of Hidden Valley Ranch, mayo, lemon juice, and hamburger relish. Another was a twist on the Waldorf Salad, combining the grain with the usual suspects—pineapple, apples, celery, and walnuts. Another featured cubed and chilled pork tenderloin, along with grapes, pineapple, mushrooms, and onions, served with a dressing of oil, vinegar, and honey. What salad couldn’t wild rice be the star of?
Every salad, it seemed, the more I looked. From a wild rice promotional pamphlet: a wild rice salad with cooked peas, cherry tomatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, and dressed in a mixture of reserved artichoke liquid, sherry, and sugar. And get this: In The Ultimate Game and Fish Cookbook: More Than 400 Recipes for All Your Wild Bounty, a wild rice salad outfitted in mayo, sour cream, yellow mustard, and Worcestershire sauce; tossed with pineapples, cashews, and water chestnuts; and paired with strips of medium-rare elk. Now that’s a Minnesota salad.
No matter that my family was a little late to the Midwest wild rice salad game. I’m all in now, so when you contemplate what to serve at your next backyard barbecue or bring to your neighborhood potluck picnic, consider this incredibly versatile grain. This summer, wild rice salad is definitely on the menu.
Blueberry Wild Rice Salad
Courtesy of Lunds & Byerlys
Servings: 6-8
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Pro-tip: Make the wild rice in advance and have it chilled and ready in the refrigerator. (One cup of uncooked wild rice yields 3 to 4 cups of cooked rice, which you’ll need for this recipe.) When it’s party time, simply toss all the ingredients together.
Writer’s note: Black paddy-grown wild rice, which is found at grocery stores, takes 45-60 minutes to make. Naturally occurring green wild rice, which you can purchase through Native American tribes like the Ojibwe at Wild Earth Wild Rice, takes around 25 minutes to make.
Ingredients
- 1 cup wild rice
- 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- 4 cups water
- 1 bunch green onions, sliced
- 1 pint blueberries
- 1 11-ounce can Mandarin oranges, well drained
- 3/4 cup L&B Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing
- 1/2 teaspoon orange zest
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1/2 cup roasted almonds
Directions
- Combine the wild rice, salt, and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer until kernels are open and tender but not mushy, 45 to 55 minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water, and drain again.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine wild rice, onion, blueberries, and oranges.
- Stir together dressing and orange zest in a small bowl. Drizzle dressing over the rice mixture and stir to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix in almonds just before serving.
