Wild Rice and Butternut Squash Salad with Maple Balsamic Dressing

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Why You’ll Love this Wild Rice & Butternut Squash Salad

I adore this splendid autumn salad that includes some of Minnesota’s very best natural ingredients. Butternut squash works well for this dish because it holds its shape beautifully after being roasted and brings a toasty, caramelized flavor.

The combination of nutty wild rice, a simple maple dressing, dried cherries, and fresh herbs are not only delicious together, but their vibrant colors combine to make one stunning dish. The ingredients are tossed together while the wild rice is warm, which naturally wilts the spinach and lets everything infuse together. The maple balsamic dressing is blended with garlic and rosemary, and it soaks into the fresh ingredients, making it so flavorful.

I love to serve it as a side dish to my Bone-In Grilled Pork Chops or Rotisserie Chicken on the Grill. The salad is the perfect addition to make it a complete meal.

How To Make This Recipe

What’s the best way to cut a winter squash?

Many varieties of winter squash are wobbly, dense and tough to break open. When I was creating wirting my Smitten with Squash cookbook, I quickly found out that safety and efficiency in working with them was going to be key, as well as something I wanted to help you with. You’ll find lots of information on that in the book, and here’s a one minute video that I filmed with Jennifer Simonson of MPR (she’s so talented!) on how to easily cut & prep a butternut squash.

In short, it comes down to two key things: a very sharp knife & stabilization.

I also spent some time with The Kitchn, sharing my 7 tips to easily cut and prep any winter squash, not just butternut.

Acorn and butternut are the only squashes I’ve tried. What other types do you suggest I explore?

Butternut and acorn are no slouch in the squash family, but we tend to make those all the time because they’re familiar. However, one of the reasons I wrote the book was to introduce people to the other delicious varieties that farmers are growing.

Most of the time people see a kabocha, delicata or blue hubbard, they’re a little unsure of what they taste like or how to prepare them so they pass them by. It’s kind of like how people used to perceive weird looking or oddly colored tomatoes. Once you try one, you’ll fall in love with the unique differences in taste and texture. Challenge yourself this year by picking one up that you’ve never cooked with and experiment. That was the way I started, and my book can help guide you through using them in the kitchen.

Try these!

• Roasted Kabocha Squash with Miso Glaze
• Roasted Carnival Squash with Chickpea Spinach Dip Filling
• Easy Roasted Red Pepper & Buttercup Squash Soup

On a side note, I think squash is the new pumpkin in terms of seasonal baking. Less water content and starchier flesh makes the puree a wonder to work with. Give that a whirl and let me know what you think!

You wrote a whole cook book on squash? Why?

Yes! It’s titled, Smitten with Squash.

When my publisher contacted me in early 2013 about writing a book for their Northern Plate Series, each being a cookbook and resource guide on a single Midwest ingredient that has been a strong part of our culture, I immediately knew my proposal would be on squash. Living in an area where growing seasons are short and very unpredictable, squash is one of the only families that is nearly “in-season” all year round.

Between the long and slender summer squash varieties, to the thick skinned blue hubbard and kabocha that last for months when cellared properly, the curcubit family holds a special place in my heart. They bring a sense of comfort and nostalgia, like your grandmother’s buttery zucchini bread or a butternut and sage pasta that warms your soul in the middle of winter.

And then there’s the possibility of new ideas that I found so delicious and eye opening. Like how wonderful red kuri can be when braised in an ethopian spiced peanut stew or the silkiness that blue hubbard adds to a cinnamon spiced pudding, topped with macadamia nuts for good measure.

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Vegan Wild Rice and Butternut Squash Salad

A colorful, roasted butternut squash salad tossed with warm wild rice, spinach, dried cherries, and herbs. The simple maple balsamic dressing is blended with garlic and rosemary, and it soaks into the fresh ingredients, making it so flavorful!

4.56 from 18 votes

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Prep Time :20 minutes minutes

Cook Time :40 minutes minutes

Total Time :1 hour hour

Yield: 6 servings

Author: Amanda Paa

Ingredients

Dressing

• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil or sunflower oil
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 2 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• scant 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Salad

• 2 1/2 cups peeled and diced butternut squash (or can use sweet potatoes, delicious this way too!)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• sea salt
• black pepper
• 2 cups thinly sliced spinach
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced leeks, both white and green parts
• 1/2 cup dried cherries or dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
• 3 cups cooked wild rice, warmed

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Equipment

• Butternut Mountain Farm Pure Maple Syrup, Grade A,
• Lundberg Family Farms Organic Wild Rice, 8 Ounce

Instructions 

• To make dressing, add all ingredients to a jar and use immersion blender to puree. Or whisk thoroughly by hand. Set aside.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Toss squash with olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread onto a baking sheet and roast for about 25 minutes, stirring once, until fork tender.
• In a large bowl, combine spinach, leeks, cherries and basil. Stir in warm rice and squash so that spinach wilts slightly from the heat.
• Stir dressing into salad; tossing to coat. Taste and adjust salt level if needed. Serve at room temperature.

Notes

Can be made a day ahead of serving!

Video Tutorial: