Greetings, plant lovers!!!! Today I have the perfect summer salad for you! What’s nice about this salad is that it has some substance. Often, I find that salads don’t really fill me up. This is all part of that learning curve of a Plant Based diet! I’ve figured out how to tweak recipes to tailor them to my tastes/needs/preferences. Sometimes, that means adding a plant-based protein, sometimes extra vegetables, seasonings…go wild!
To start-what is farro?? Farro is similar to barley. This ancient grain dates back to Mesopotamia! I don’t know why, but even the name farro sounds ancient to me. Farro is full of fiber, protein, and nutrients. It’s a tad chewy and has a nutty flavor. You’ll want to buy whole farro, where the grain remains intact. It has a longer cook time, but retains more nutrients, flavor, and fiber than a processed farro, where the bran and outer husk has been removed. We had a bit of a search for the farro in the grocery store, but ultimately located it near the quinoa. I say ‘we’ because even though Mr. Forensic BBQ rarely eats my tasty dishes, he is often recruited to go grocery shopping with me and help me locate obscure ingredients. I don’t think he minds, though, considering he once went to 12 different stores in 2 days searching for fresh cayenne peppers for one of his creations.
The first thing to do in this recipe, as always, is prep your veggies. Slice, dice, chop, mince, peel. Whatever needs to be done. I’ve said it before, this makes everything so much more efficient.
Next, cook the farro. This will take you about 20 minutes. I use this time to finish prepping my vegetables and gather any dishes I will use for serving. I also use this time to feed my cats, whom will occasionally make a cameo appearance in my blog photos.
This salad is so easy to make! While your farro is cooking, mix baby spinach, peppers (I used red, green, yellow, and red, as always-adds nice color and varying sweetness to your dish), cherry or grape tomatoes (I went with cherry, my favorite), scallions, corn (I opted for frozen corn in this instance, but canned will do just fine), and fresh blueberries. Add your farro to the salad mix and enjoy your healthy, well-rounded dinner!
One last thing I love about this dish is the leftovers can be refrigerated and eaten as a cold salad the next day. The farro doesn’t have to be warm. The recipe actually suggests you cool the farro before adding it to your salad, so clearly it is fine to eat it cold.
Another easy to make Plant Based dinner to add to the rotation! Recipe was found in Forks Over Knives magazine, but altered to suit my tastes.