Italian Rice Bowl with Tomatoes, Eggs and Herbs

Irish chef Clodagh McKenna discovered a dish similar to this rice bowl at a café in Turin, Italy, about 15 years ago. She has been making her own version ever since. Packed with nutrients, flavours, and textures this stunning Italian-inspired rice salad has everything you could ask for in one bowl. Don’t feel restricted when it comes to the vegetables—use what you have on hand. Add legumes or the protein of your choice if you want to bulk the meal up. Once prepared, the dish will last for up to three days in the refrigerator, making it ideal for super-quick, healthful lunches.

This recipe uses the pasta method to cook rice. Meaning the rice is cooked in a large pot of boiling water until tender and then drained (pro tip, use a fine-mesh sieve for this). The result is perfect, tender, fluffy, separate grains of rice, every time. This is an especially great technique for any type of rice (long, short, brown, white) or other grains for salads. And it takes the guess work out of getting the grain to water ratio perfect.

Italian Rice Bowl With Tomatoes, Eggs and Herbs

Clodagh McKenna

Hearty and satisfying, this meal-in-a-bowl salad is packed with nutrients, colours and textures making it a meal you'll want to eat again and again.

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Ingredients

• 500 g brown basmati rice rinsed
• 4 eggs
• 120 g French beans topped but not tailed
• 2 ribs celery finely sliced
• 341 mL can corn drained
• 4 tomatoes halved, quartered or sliced, depending on size
• 1 tbsp chopped mint leaves
• 1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
• sea salt flakes and freshly ground pepper

Dressing

• 1 lemon juiced
• 100 mL extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp honey

Instructions

 

• Placed rinsed rice in large pot of cold salted water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook for 25 minutes, or according to package instructions, until cooked. Drain and let cool.
• In separate pot of boiling water, boil eggs for 7 minutes, then remove and plunge into bowl of cold water. Drain and peel, then quarter.
• Add French beans to pot of boiling salted water and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain and cool in bowl of cold water to stop them from cooking any further. Drain again, then cut into 2-inch (5 cm) pieces.
• Place cooled rice in large serving bowl. Add eggs, beans, celery, corn, tomatoes and herbs, then season with salt and pepper.

Dressing

• In bowl, whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, Dijon mustard and honey.
• To serve, pour dressing over salad and gently toss everything together.

Recipes from Clodagh’s Happy Cooking: 100 Easy, Speedy, Healthy Recipes for Good Mood Food by Clodagh McKenna. Photography by David Loftus. © 2026 by Octopus Publishing Group. Excerpted with permission from Kyle Books. All rights reserved.