Accompanied by bold ingredients such as roasted red peppers, black olives, and feta cheese, Warm Farro Salad is a dinner fit for the King or Queen in your life on a cold autumn night.
The Thomas-Ewing household loves a good grain dish. Our pantry always has a few basic varieties of rice – long grain white, a good brown rice, and of course, my favourite weeknight rice, instant! Along with rice, you’ll find lots of dried beans, dried fruits, nuts and seeds, and lastly, grains such as farro, barley, and millet.
Cooking with grains, like I did with this Warm Farro Salad, can really help to increase the fiber and protein in your diet. But, more importantly, they will increase your mealtime options. (Okay – I know fiber is important, but I’m a food blogger; it’s all about the taste!)
Cooking grains can take a little practice. For those of you who are reading this, and have been following the cooking adventures at Lord Byron’s Kitchen for a while now, will already be aware of the fact that my rice cooking skills are non-existent.
I can never seem to master rice, which is why John.e is always in charge of cooking rice in our home. Oh, and he cooks quinoa too, because to properly cook quinoa, you need to be well versed in sorcery and witchcraft to keep that stuff light and fluffy!
Farro and barley, though, I have mastered with the help of Trader Joe’s. This is not a plug for Trader Joe’s in any way, I just wanted to let you know where I find grains that mimic the instant rice I mentioned earlier. If you have the magic touch and have no issues with clumpy, mushy cooked grains, you go ahead and use whatever brand you always have.
At Trader Joe’s though, they have these small pouches of grains that, like instant rice, need only a few minutes to cook. I love them and will use them whenever I get the chance. When we travel across the border, because there are no Trader Joe’s locations in Canada, we will stock up. I have six pouches in my pantry right now, in fact.
Warm Farro Salad is a bold, warm salad that eats like a meal. It’s certainly hearty enough to fill you up on the cold, damp nights of fall. Both John.e and McKenna loved this salad. I, on the other hand, did not. Gasp! Are you wondering why I would post and promote a recipe that I did not like? Let me explain.
In the beginning, Lord Byron’s Kitchen was a vegetarian blog that only posted vegetarian recipes. Eventually, the blog transitioned and grew into a comfort food blog. Of course, I’m not a vegetarian, so comfort for me includes meat.
I still post lots of vegetarian recipes, because both John.e and McKenna are vegetarians. I try to maintain some balance so that I’m not always preparing recipes for one side over the other.
Warm Farro Salad was prepared with my two vegetarians in mind. I have relied on both of them for their feedback with this recipe, because I wouldn’t taste it.
It’s beautiful, but I cannot bear the thoughts of placing a black olive in my mouth. That is why, my personal tastes have taken the backseat in this post, and I am presenting a recipe for you who like black olives as much as John.e does. He loves them!
I’m sure you’ll enjoy this Warm Farro Salad as much as they did. You can leave the black olives out if you wish; if I were cooking for me alone, I would certainly do the same. But, in love, like in life, balance is key, and sometimes, we make monumental sacrifices for the ones we love. (I had to touch an olive!)
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Warm Farro Salad
Ingredients
- 6 cups farro, cooked and drained
- 1 cup roasted red peppers, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup green onions, sliced
- 1/2 cup black olives, sliced
- 1/2 cup feta, crumbled
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground all-spice
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- Whisk together the olive oil, maple syrup, lemon juice, salt, pepper, all-spice, garlic powder, and paprika. Set aside.
- Add the following ingredients to a large mixing bowl in this order: roasted red peppers, black olives, green onions, and farro.
- Pour the sauce mixture over the farro and toss all together until well coated mixed thoroughly.
- Add the feta. Toss gently to combine. Don't mix too much; you want to keep the crumbled feta from breaking apart too much.
- Serve immediately. Garnish with some fresh parsley if desired.
Nutrition
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Jack Smith says
This is outstanding!!! Absolutely loved it!