Wild Rice Chicken Salad with Cranberries

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Flavorful Wild Rice Chicken Salad with Cranberries is a stunning, make-ahead, cold main dish salad showcasing a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors and textures.

With nutty wild rice, tender, and juicy roasted chicken, along with dried cranberries, tart granny smith apples, sweet red bell pepper, crisp celery, and buttery pecans, each bite is nothing less than a flavor explosion in your mouth.

Most traditional wild rice salad recipes are packed with calories, but this gorgeous salad is made without mayonnaise and instead features a simple, light, and tasty balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

A wooden plate full of wild rice chicken salad.

Like my Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad, it’s a wonderful, versatile, anytime main dish salad, and it’s also ideal for serving at Thanksgiving potlucks, summer picnics, holiday or weekend brunches, and ladies’ luncheons.

There is a fairly long list of ingredients and a decent amount of chopping involved, but after that, this recipe comes together quickly. Honestly, I don’t think you will be able to find a more delicious combination of flavors and textures, and I do hope you will give it a try.

Special thanks to my friend Kathleen Scott, who shared this recipe with me so I could share it with you!

Ingredients – here’s what you need:

A plate of cooked chicken and other ingredients to make a wild rice chicken salad.

Wild rice – is actually not rice or a grain, but a native North American long-grain marsh grass, hailing from the Great Lakes. It has a wonderful toasty, nutty flavor and is a little crunchy. For the best results with this recipe, it’s essential that you use wild rice, not brown rice or a wild rice blend.
Chicken – you can use roasted, grilled, or leftover cooked chicken. To save time, you can also use a purchased rotisserie chicken. These days, most stores also carry precooked packaged chicken. The quality varies widely depending on the vendor. I recently tried Trader Joe’s Grilled Chicken Breast Strips, and they work great in this salad.
Cranberries – dried cranberries are the way to go, and they add a beautiful pop of color, texture, and their characteristic sweet-tart flavor.
Granny Smith Apples – add color, crisp texture, and their intense tart flavor to the flavor profile. You can substitute a different variety of apples, but be sure to stick with one with a similar texture, such as Honeycrisp. Avoid varieties such as McIntosh or Golden Delicious, which are softer.
Red onion – adds a pop of bright purple color and a sweet onion taste. If you have picky eaters, you can leave them out or try finely mincing them or grating them and reducing the amount called for in this recipe.
Red bell pepper – adds beautiful color and a crisp texture, and they are the sweetest of the bell peppers. Feel free to substitute green or yellow bell peppers. There are so many other flavors going on that I doubt you will notice the difference in taste.
Celery – I like to use celery hearts, which are tender inner ribs, but you can substitute regular celery ribs. It brings a fresh earthy flavor and crunch to the party.
Pecans – which are my favorite nut with their rich buttery flavor, add crunch and texture. I like to toast my pecans first and always keep a bag of roasted pecans in my freezer ready to add to salads and other dishes, but they can also be used raw. You can substitute other nuts such as almonds, walnuts, cashews, and pine nuts. Pumpkin or sunflower seeds can also be used.
Olive oil and balsamic vinegar – come together to form a simple, light salad dressing that enhances and showcases all of the other ingredients.
Kosher salt and ground black pepper – are added to the salad dressing to provide flavor. Kosher salt is also used to flavor the rice while it is cooking.

Directions – here’s how to make it:

Rinse the rice in a fine mesh strainer under cold running water. Then, place the drained rice in a pan along with two cups of water and a half teaspoon of salt. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat, and when it starts boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low and bring it to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 50 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed most of the water and some of the grains have burst open. Pour into a colander to drain. Set aside and let it cool a bit.

Add the apples, red onion, red bell pepper, dried cranberries, celery, and pecan pieces to a large bowl. Combine everything and then add the rice and cooked chicken. Mix well.

Chopped bell pepper, onion, and other ingredients to make a salad.

Add the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, remaining kosher salt, and pepper to a small mason jar. Shake well and pour it over the salad. Mix well.

A glass bowl full of wild rice, chicken and other salad ingredients.

Wild Rice Chicken Salad can be served warm or cold. If making it ahead, cover and store in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.

Wild rice chicken salad on lettuce on a wooden plate.

Frequently asked questions:

What’s the difference between wild rice and brown or white rice?

Even though it looks like rice and cooks like rice, wild rice isn’t rice at all but a native edible seed that grows in Minnesota and around the great lakes. Wild rice also contains more fiber and protein than regular rice.

What to serve with this dish?

I like to serve this hearty salad on fancy lettuce leaves along with some type of bread such as my Easy Southern Cheddar Cheese Biscuits, Hoe Cakes, and Texas Toast Garlic Bread.

A slice of quick bread like Southern Apple Bread or Peach Bread also pairs nicely with it.

How do I store leftovers?

Leftovers can be stored covered in the refrigerator for up to four days.

Recipe variations:

This recipe for wild rice chicken salad is very versatile, and you can change it up according to your family’s preferences or what you have on hand. Here are a few ideas:

Swap out leftover turkey for the chicken, or leave out the chicken altogether to make it vegetarian.
Substitute or add green or red seedless grapes, mushrooms, roasted veggies, edamame, mandarin orange slices, or pomegranate arils.
Substitute dried blueberries or cherries for the dried cranberries.
Add a little feta, goat cheese, or blue cheese crumbles.
Top it with some sliced avocado or chopped parsley.
Substitute scallions for the red onion.

Sharon’s tips:

For the best results with this recipe, it is really important to use 100% wild rice and not brown rice or a wild rice blend such as Uncle Ben’s. I have tried both, and they are not suitable substitutes.
If you need to cook the chicken for bone-In skin on breasts, check out my recipe for Roasted Chicken Breasts. If you have boneless, skinless chicken breasts, coat the breasts with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and bake in a 375-degree oven for about 20 minutes or until an instant-read meat thermometer registers 165 degrees F.
Wild rice can usually be found at the grocery store close to where the regular rice, rice blends, and grains are. Unfortunately, it is more expensive than regular rice and usually packaged in smaller bags. You will often find it on the top or bottom shelves.
Because cooking the wild rice is the most time-consuming part of this recipe, I usually make two or three times as much as I need and then freeze the leftover rice so I can save that step the next time I make it.
If you are like me and use roasted pecans a lot in your cooking as I do, another time-saving tip is to roast a pound or two pounds at a time and store them in the freezer in a plastic freezer storage bag until you need them.
Because you only need half of a cup of pecan pieces, the easiest way to roast them is in the microwave. To do this, spread them out in a single layer on a microwave-safe plate and microwave in one-minute intervals until they are toasted. Depending on your microwave, this will take between four and six minutes.

More salad recipes:

If you like recipes like this, here are a few of my other favorites that I think you might also like:

If you need more recipes or menu ideas, you can check out all of my salad recipes here.

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📋 Recipe:

This recipe was originally published on February 20, 2016. It has been updated with additional information, new photos added and republished on August 6, 2022.