Chicken-and-Rice Salad with Pesto Yogurt Dressing

Recipe and image from Food & Wine

We love cooking with yogurt. It's a cool, healthy, tangy replacement for heavy cream in creamy dishes. We love this dish because it's quick and easy. Pick up a whole roasted chicken from your favorite grocery store, and this dish will take minutes to prepare.

 

1 1/2 cups long-grain rice
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup store-bought or homemade pesto
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1 roasted chicken, bones and skin removed (about 1 pound meat), meat torn into bite-size pieces (about 3 cups) 

1. Bring a medium pot of boiling, salted water to a boil. Stir in the rice and boil until just done, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain thoroughly.
2. In a large serving bowl, whisk together the yogurt, pesto, salt, and pepper. Add the chicken and the rice and toss to combine.

Serve With Pesto

Suggested Pairing:
Both the dominant herbal flavor of the pesto and the yogurt's acidic tang suggest a Sauvignon-Blanc-based wine. Once again, look to the Loire, Sauvignon's ancestral home, for an herbal, gassy, citrusy Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé.