Italian Rice Salad with Tuna (Insalata di Riso)

This Tuna Rice Salad with tuna is a staple in Italy. Eaten cold, it's a refreshing dish, especially come summer time. The flavors of the mixed vegetables, tuna and ham are an unexpected combination but work beautifully together.

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 20

Resting time 1

Total Time 35

Servings people

Calories 474kcal

Author Pina Bresciani

Ingredients

3 cups Arborio rice
1 bouillon cube
4 cups jarred pickled mixed vegetables *see recipe notes
1.5 cups cubed ham (cut into 2cm pieces)
1 cup Italian tuna in olive oil, drained
1 cup pitted black olives, sliced
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup mayonnaise *see recipe notes
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In a large pot, add about 3L of water and the bouillon cube. Bring to a boil. Add the rice and let it cook until tender, about 20-25 mins. Drain the rice from the water and rinse with cold water. Since this is a cold rice salad, you want to work with cold rice. Let the rice drain if possible, so you're not working with wet rice. Place cold, drained rice in a large bowl.
To the rice, add pickled vegetables (drained), tuna, ham, and olives. Mix in well with the rice. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Add olive oil and mix again.
Place bowl in fridge and let the rice salad sit for at least one hour, can even be up to overnight.
When about ready to serve the salad, add mayonnaise and mix well. Serve and enjoy!

Video

Notes

For the pickled mixed vegetables in the rice salad, you can use regular jarred pickled vegetables like these, and cut them into smaller pieces.
Or, if you can find it, you can use GustoRiso, which is a mix made especially for Italian rice salad. You should be able to find it in an Italian grocery store in your city.
You can customize this rice salad to your liking, Instead of using jarred vegetables, you can make your own mix by using things such as marinated artichokes, fresh peppers, peas, cubed cheese etc.
The mayonnaise amount is an approximation. Some people like more mayo, some like less in their rice salad. Start with adding just ½ cup of mayonnaise, then see if you would like to add more.
The best rice to use for this dish is arborio or carnaroli rice. It will produce the best texture for a salad of this type.
Before adding mayonnaise to the salad, it will last 3-4 days in the fridge.
You may notice that I added extra black olives to the rice salad. This is because I really like olives and like the extra flavor that they add.

Nutrition