Spicy Chipotle Honey Salmon Rice Salad.

Spicy Chipotle Honey Salmon Rice Salad. Smoky, slightly spicy, chipotle roasted salmon tossed with crispy garlic rice and a big avocado salad. Drizzle over my favorite toasted sesame tahini honey dressing, and you’ll have a salad that will not disappoint. This is kind of like a rice bowl meets a big green salad. Totally delicious! I recommend serving this with salted tortilla chips for scooping. YUM!

If there was ever a salad I could get my family excited about eating, it’s surely a salad with rice. We could live off of bowls of steamed rice. It’s certainly one of our main food groups. Honestly, there’s not a week that goes by that I’m not making at least one pot of rice.

Why Rice?

Our obsession has been fueled by my one and only mother; she is the queen of rice! We enjoyed rice so much growing up. She used to make pots of instant rice, but then my dad took over, and it became steamed rice with salt and butter.

I’m not sure how he learned to cook the perfect pot of rice, but to this day, I use his method. Rice and water in a pot with a slice of butter. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat to low for 5 minutes. Then turn the heat off and let the rice sit, covered, for another 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork (always a fork) and serve!

My brother, Red, has told me multiple times that he’ll eat almost anything over rice. You get the point; we adore rice. Ok, moving on!

I almost always have leftover bowls of rice in the fridge. With all that rice, you can guess that rice salads happen often. But I like my rice warm, so crispy rice salads are what I’ve been making lately. I crisp my rice up in the oven, just like I do when I make chicken fried rice. Then, I toss it with a lot of salad ingredients! This salmon salad is my dad’s favorite; spicy chipotle honey salmon rice salad never disappoints!

These are the details

Rice Ingredients 

• cooked rice
• salted butter
• garlic
• tamari/soy sauce
• black pepper

Salmon Salad Ingredients

• salted butter
• salmon
• chipotle in adobo
• honey
• tamari/soy sauce
• shredded cabbage
• avocados
• Persian cucumber
• jalapeñ0
• cilantro
• roasted peanuts

Tahini Dressing Ingredients

• olive oil
• lemon juice
• tahini
• honey
• tamari/soy sauce
• garlic
• toasted sesame seeds

Special Tools

Nothing special, just a sheet pan, a blender or mixing bowl, and a salad bowl!

Steps

Step 1: make the rice

This is not a classic crispy rice. It’s made on a sheet pan to make things fast and easy.

I like to toss my rice (I usually use jasmine) with butter, toasted sesame oil, and garlic. Then I bake it to dry it out and get it crispy. Next, I add a little tamari and allow it to bake into the rice.

The rice comes out crispy, garlicky, and salty. It’s so good!

Step 2: make the salmon

I cook the salmon while the rice is cooking – all in the same oven.

It’s pretty easy. Toss the salmon cubes with butter, then chipotle, honey, and tamari; bake until crisp.

Step 3: now the salad

Shredded cabbage, chunks of avocado, cucumber, chopped jalapeño, cilantro and peanuts.

You could also use kale in place of the cabbage, but I’m loving simple cabbage lately.

Step 4: the tahini dressing

A combination of creamy tahini (sesame seed paste), lemon juice, honey, and a couple of teaspoons of tamari or soy sauce. The tahini provides a wonderful creamy dressing, while the honey and tamari add sweet, savory, and salty flavors.

Add chili flakes on top for some spice!

Step 5: putting it all together

Spoon the hot rice over the salad, add the salmon, and then the dressing. Give this a gentle toss to combine – eat right away!

As mentioned above, I like my rice warm, and honestly, many of my salads too. So warm and crispy is the way I like to do it!

This is odd, but…

For serving, I’ve started adding homemade tortilla chips. I like scooping up the salad with the chips. They add a yummy salty crunch!

Looking for other salmon recipes? Here are a few…

Sheet Pan Chipotle Salmon Tacos with Pineapple Jalapeño Salsa

Parchment Baked Roasted Red Pepper Salmon

Coconut Curry Salmon with Garlic Butter

Lastly, if you make this Spicy Chipotle Honey Salmon Rice Salad, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And, of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!

@halfbakedharvest

Spicy Chipotle Honey Salmon Rice Salad – making tonight and saving leftover for the week

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