Farro Salad

I had an amazing cold farro salad at a potluck; this is my attempt to reproduce it, with some reference to an Italian Farro Salad from Well Plated. They insist on Bob’s Red Mill farro, but since I’ve never found any other brand I can’t comment on that.

Serves 8.

Ingredients

Salad

1 c. uncooked farro
¼ tsp. salt
1 cucumber, diced
½ pint small tomatoes, halved (optional)
½ c. crumbled feta
16 kalamata olives
3 T. capers (optional)
¼ c. chopped fresh parsley, or ⅛ c. fresh basil, and/or fresh dill to taste

Dressing

¼ c. good olive oil
2 T. balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt, pepper, and/or oregano, to taste
½ tsp. honey (optional)
1 tsp. prepared mustard (optional)

Directions

Boil farro 30 minutes in at least 3 cups of salted water, or pressure cook 12 minutes with 1 ½ cups of water and release naturally.
Mix dressing.
Drain farro.
Dress, then cool.
Toss all ingredients.
Serve at room temperature or cold.

Variants

Fry the farro in oil with shallots before cooking in stock, risotto-style.

Tahini is an interesting dressing variant.

Sweet onion and sun-dried tomato appear frequently in farro recipes, as do nuts (usually pistachios or pecans, but I would keep it Italian with pine nuts, or keep it cheap with walnuts). Cannellini and/or frozen peas have also been suggested.

Sometimes the cheese is parmesan instead of feta.

Often a literal green salad is mixed with farro to make a farro salad.