Wild Rice Salad with Cranberries & Walnuts

This recipe is from Veggie Primer and the dressing is from Forks Over Knives. I ended up using half wild rice and half black rice. I dried the cranberries myself in my dehydrator because I couldn't find any pre-made that didn't contain sugar :(

Wild Rice Salad with Cranberries & Walnuts

Ingredients

4 cups cooked wild brown rice mix (2 cups uncooked)
½ medium red onion
2 stalks of celery
2 packed cups fresh baby kale (I used baby spinach)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup dried cranberries
Magical Applesauce Vinaigrette (recipe below)

Method

If you do not have cooked rice on hand, cook rice in advance, fluff with fork and allow to cool.
Prepare Magical Applesauce Vinaigrette.
Place onion in a food processor fitted with the S blade and pulse until onion is finely chopped.
Scrape onion into a bowl and repeat the process with the celery and baby kale, separately.
Add walnuts and cranberries to chopped vegetables and stir until well combined.
Scape cooled rice into chopped vegetables with a fork (to help separate the grains) and stir until well combine. You may find it helpful to scrape and stir ⅓ of the rice at a time.
Add vinaigrette and diced apples to the salad, stir and serve or refrigerate for 1-2 days for later use.


Magical Applesauce Vinaigrette

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tsp mild miso
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
4 Tbls apple cider vinegar
2 Tbls balsamic vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbls pure maple syrup
1/2 rounded teaspoon sea salt (or more)
Freshly ground black pepper


Method

Place the applesauce, miso, cumin, cinnamon, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, mustard, maple syrup, and salt and pepper in an immersion blender with a deep cup, and blend until very smooth. I just whisked it by hand and it came out fine.