Meera Sodha’s recipe for black rice salad with tomatoes, tamarind and green beans | Meera Sodha recipes

Change up your seasonal salads with an easy-to-prep dish that centres on slow-cooked rice and a lively Asian dressing

Here’s a recipe straight out of the low-effort, high-reward school of cooking, in which you chop the vegetables and nuts, boil the rice and beans, throw over a dressing … and it’s done! It was written in the middle of a heatwave, when cooking felt impossible, but I couldn’t look at another watermelon and feta salad. The trade-off is that this dish relies heavily on a couple of key ingredients: sambal oelek (which gives the salad its sparkle) and black rice, which, unlike other types of rice in a salad, never tastes worthy.