Roasted broccoli and brown rice salad with feta

Written by Guest post on Wednesday, 18 April 2018.
Tagged: dinner, fresh food, healthy cooking, healthy eating, healthy heart, healthy recipe, lunch, salad, vegetarian

Ready In: 25 minutes
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 2 as a main, 4 as a side

Roasted broccoli and brown rice salad with feta

This delicious and nutty salad makes for a satiating vegetarian meal, or can be served as a side to any grilled meat or salmon. Plus the combination of all the ingredients provides a variety of textures, so you really get to enjoy your meal! The garlic roasted broccoli is also pretty addictive and might just convert any broccoli-hater into an avid consumer. We like to make double the recipe so we have a side salad for dinner and a few work-friendly lunches throughout the week.

Ingredients

FOR THE SALAD:
250 g (about 1 cup) broccoli florets, chopped into bite sized pieces
1 clove garlic, minced or finely-chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup cooked brown rice
½ stem spring onion, finely sliced (about 1 tablespoon)
5-6 sprigs oregano, leaves finely sliced (about 2 tablespoons)
30 g feta cheese (about 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons sultanas
30 g dry roasted almonds, roughly chopped (about 1-2 tablespoons)
FOR THE DRESSING:
1 ½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
3 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons olive oil

Nutrition per serve

As a main:

1679 kJ (402 Calories), 10 g protein, 19 g fat including 4 g saturated fat, 41 g Carbohydrate including 13 g sugars, 6 g fibre and 255 mg sodium.

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/375°F fan-forced and line an oven tray with baking paper.
In a large bowl, toss the broccoli with olive oil, garlic and a few grinds of pepper. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, or until tender and lightly charred.
Meanwhile, make the salad dressing. In a small screw-top jar, mix together the olive oil, lemon juice and mustard. Shake well to combine.
In a medium bowl, combine the brown rice, spring onion, oregano, sultanas and almonds. Add in the roasted broccoli and any of the remaining roasted garlic on the oven tray. Crumble in the feta cheese. Pour the salad dressing over the rice mixture and mix well to combine.
Divide the salad between 2 as a main or 4 as a side salad. Enjoy!

Variations

During pomegranate season, try replacing the sultanas with 2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds for extra freshness
Replace oregano with any other fresh herb of your choice (I also really like dill!)
If you don’t have any almonds, any other nut eg cashews, peanuts etc will do.

Thank you to dietitian Sophie Feng for this delicious recipe. You can follow Sophie at @sophiesfoodfeast.