Farro Salad with Beet Greens, Beets, & Parsley
One night as I tried to fall asleep, I thought about the bounty of parsley in my garden and tried to dream up some new way I could use it up.
The next morning I was walking through the garden and discovered a beautiful beet cresting up over the top of the soil, and I realized, my beets are ready, and I shall pair them with this parsley.
A lot of this recipe is versatile, so I could have called it a “use-up-the-garden grain salad.” Any herb (or combination of herbs) could replace the parsley, and if you’re not excited by beets, you could, for instance, replace the beet greens with any other green, and replace the beets with something fun like olives. Or tomatoes. Both, even! I used walnuts because they pair so well with beets, so if you were using other veggies, I’d recommend potentially switching out the nuts, or even removing them altogether.
But this particular grain salad’s main purpose is to savor the bounty of beets and parsley.
This is how you make it:
The Prep
Prepare the beets and beet greens:
Gather up:
3-4 medium sized beets (with greens attached)
Remove the root from the leaves and get the beets into the oven to roast, about an hour at about 400 degrees, while you’re preparing everything else.
Wrap the beets individually in aluminum foil — when they get out of the oven, you’ll be able to easily skin them with your hands, and then chop them into the size that you’d like to bite into.
Meanwhile, wash the greens and slice into strips.
To a pan on medium heat, add:
A few glugs of olive oil
A sprinkle of cumin seeds
1 onion, diced
Add some salt and pepper, and let saute for a few minutes until softened. Then add all of your beet greens.
Continue to saute until excess moisture has evaporated and the greens taste good. Season with salt and pepper.
Make the parsley pesto:
In a food processor, combine:
As many bunches of parsley you have
A handful or two of fresh mint
A heaping handful of toasted walnuts
At least 1/2 C of olive oil (probably more, it just depends on how much parsley you have)
1 lemon, juiced (start with half of the lemon and taste before adding the rest)
1 garlic clove, microplaned
Salt and pepper
Taste to make sure it has enough salt and then set aside.
Putting it Together
When you are ready to assemble, get a big bowl. Add:
3 C of farro
Begin to spoon in the parsley pesto, starting with a heaping few spoonfuls, and continuing to stir in until every grain appears coated.
Begin to add in:
White wine vinegar, a glug or two at a time
Taste and season with salt, and/or add more white wine vinegar. (I needed to add quite a few glugs of acid here before the flavors really started to sing. This is a better place to taste and adjust the balance than when making the dressing itself, which is why we just make the pesto at the beginning there.)
Stir the prepared beet greens into the salad, and then add:
Several large handfuls of toasted walnuts, chopped
A block of feta in water, crumbled (save some of it for topping)
Give it a good stir.
Plating
Serve this family style. Transfer everything in your big bowl into a serving dish (or clean up the sides of your big bowl to make it presentable).
Add to the top of it:
The rest of your feta cheese, crumbling as you go
All of the chopped beets
More toasted walnuts
Some sprinklings of herbs: parsley and dill
We turned this into a meal by unabashedly eating it with french fries. But I could imagine serving this with some crusty garlic bread, or under a piece of chicken, etc.
I served the leftovers on top of salad greens, which I really enjoyed, especially with an extra drizzle of parsley pesto that was leftover. I also imagined adding some lentils into this mix, which would truly make it a one-dish dinner.