Black Bean Rice Salad with Honey Chipotle Dressing

This black bean rice salad features fluffy steamed rice with black beans, sweet peppers, and avocado dressed in a sweet and spicy honey chipotle dressing.

This really is the ideal salad situation today since we’re ditching the greens and making it rice-based! Along with a whole mess of black beans, colorful veggies, and an absolutely addictive honey chipotle dressing.

I mean heck, sign me up for a salad like this one every dang day.

This rice salad is absolutely going to be a fixture on my summer salads rotation this summer, folks! I have a feeling it’s going to get along just swimmingly with things like my blackened chicken sandwiches, cilantro lime tacos, and definitely this pineapple chicken.

The summer excitement is building, lemme tell ya!

This Rice Salad Features…

• A base of fluffy rice and black beans
• Silky avocado cubes, sweet pepper, and red onion
• A sweet and spicy honey chipotle dressing

Making the Rice Salad

(scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe)

Ingredients You Will Need

• Chipotle in adobo sauce
• Lime juice
• Honey
• Garlic
• Vegetable oil
• Rice
• Black beans
• Sweet pepper
• Avocado
• Red onion
• Cilantro

Choosing Your Rice

I recommend using a long-grain white rice for this salad. My favorite brand to use is Mahatma, but any long-grain white rice will work.

Tips for Perfect Rice Salad

1. Simmer rice 12-15 minutes – cook the rice until the liquid is evaporated and rice is tender.
2. Cool rice on a sheet pan – cooling the rice on a sheet pan will cool it quickly and allow the rice to dry out a bit.
3. Drain and rinse beans in water – this removes the extra starch from the beans.
4. Use fresh lime in dressing – you can’t beat the flavor fresh lime gives the dressing.
5. Blend dressing – you can use a blender or food processor for blending the dressing.
6. Rinse red onion – a quick rinse in cold water removes the extra bite from red onion.
7. Dress salad just before serving – wait until just before serving to dress salad to keep all the ingredients fresh.

Recipe Variations

Try these ideas for a different twist on this salad.

• Use another bean – try chickpeas or kidney beans in place of the black beans.
• Adjust heat level – use 1 chipotle pepper for a more mild flavor. Alternatively, bump up the heat by using the suggested amount and supplement with hot sauce to taste.
• Add meat – try adding cooked chicken or turkey to salad.

Meal Prep Instructions

Follow these instructions for time-saving make ahead tips.

• Make the rice – allow the rice to cool and store in refrigerator up to 4 days.
• Blend the dressing – the dressing stores well in refrigerator up to 1 week.
• Assemble salad – combine the rice, black beans, sweet pepper, red onion and cilantro in a bowl and store in refrigerator up to 2 days.
• Dress salad – when ready to serve, toss salad in dressing, dice and add avocado, and serve immediately.

This salad is just a bowl full of the most dynamite flavors! The fluffy rice soaks up all that wonderful honey chipotle sauce and plays so well with the hearty beans, silky avocado, and a mess of crunchy sweet peppers.

Definitely one salad you won’t have to convince anyone to dig into!

Save this recipe using the ‘save to recipe box’ button below. If you make it, please let us know! Leave a comment + star rating below, or take a photo and tag it on Instagram with #wholeandheavenlyoven.

More colorful salads you’ll love!

• Charred Zucchini Sweet Corn Salad
• Street Corn Chopped Salad
• Blackened Salmon Salad