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This Mujadara dish will have you thinking rice at dinner tonight!
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ARLINGTON, VA - Today, USA Rice announced the winners of the "
Think Rice for National Nutrition Month" recipe challenge for food and nutrition bloggers. USA Rice launched the contest with Recipe Redux, a monthly recipe challenge founded by registered dietitians and open to a network of nutrition enthusiasts who are reinventing the idea of healthy eating with a taste-first approach.
Participants were required to create an original recipe using U.S.-grown rice and feature their recipe in a blog post with information about why their readers should Think Rice for National Nutrition Month and all year long.
Fifty bloggers participated in the challenge
with a combined blog reach of more than 600,000 unique visitors per month and an additional 870,000 monthly impressions from Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest posts.
"Recipe Redux enabled us to engage with influential food and nutrition bloggers, get them cooking with U.S. rice, and educate them on important U.S.-grown rice messages that they in turn share with their readers," said Katie Maher, manager of domestic promotion programs. "We also now own fifty new, on-trend recipes and with beautiful accompanying photography to add to our database and use throughout our programs."
The Grand Prize winner will receive a $1,000 American Express gift card and an Aroma rice cooker; and two Runners-Up will each receive a $250 American Express gift card and an Aroma rice cooker. Below are the winning recipes:
"I wanted to highlight rice's versatility in regards to different cuisines," said Grand Prize winner and registered dietitian, Rachael Hartley. "It is one of the most widely consumed foods in the world! Think sushi in Japan, arroz con pollo in South America, risotto in Italy, biryani in India, congee in China, gallo pinto in Central America, paella in Spain...you get the point...so, I came up with this gussied up version of mujadara, a traditional Middle Eastern dish of lentils cooked with brown rice, topped with caramelized onion. It's an incredibly simple dish."
"Selecting just three winners was a really tough decision because all of the entries were so creative and we were impressed with the representation of rice types included brown, U.S. basmati, U.S. black japonica, and wild, to name just a few," said Maher.
Maher said another value of the contest and publicity surrounding it is that it helps raise general awareness about U.S.-grown rice and its versatility.
"Consumers are always looking for new recipes, and we know from our research that they are often unaware of authentic ethnic varieties grown right here in the U.S. This contest helps us spread the word," she added.
Contact: Colleen Klemczewski (703) 236-1446
