13 May Greek Salad With Chickpeas
This recipe and many others in my free patient guide, Overcoming Metabolic Syndrome, were selected from the book, Nourishing Meals: Healthy, Gluten-free Recipes for the Whole Family. Not only are these recipes helpful for avoiding gluten, but they generally focus on ingredients with a low refined carbohydrate content and follow my Modified Mediterranean Diet guidelines.
Greek Salad With Chickpeas
A colorful and hearty Greek-inspired salad featuring farro, chickpeas, mint-dill yogurt sauce and plenty of greens.
Ingredients
- 1 cup farro, rinsed
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
- ½ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
Herbed yogurt
- 1¼ cups plain Greek yogurt
- 1½ tablespoon lightly packed fresh mint, torn into pieces
- 1½ tablespoon lightly packed fresh dill, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice (about ½ lemon)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Salad
- 5 ounces mixed greens
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced into rounds
- 1 cucumber, sliced into thin rounds
- ½ small red onion, chopped and then rinsed under water to mellow the flavor
- 15 pitted Kalamata olives, sliced into rounds
- 2 cups cooked chickpeas (or one 14-ounce can, rinsed and drained)
- 1 avocado, sliced into strips
- Lemon wedges
Instructions
1. Cook the farro: Add the rinsed farro to a large pot and fill it with water. Bring the water to a boil, then cover, reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and cook until the farro is tender to the bite but still pleasantly chewy. (Pearled farro will take around 15 minutes, unprocessed farro will take 25 to 40 minutes.) Once the farro is done cooking, drain it and mix in the olive oil, garlic and salt.
2. Make the herbed yogurt: in a blender or food processor, combine the yogurt, mint, dill, olive oil, lemon juice and salt, and blend. If necessary, add additional olive oil, lemon juice and/or salt to taste.
3. Assemble the salad: gently reheat the farro and chickpeas if desired. In individual salad bowls, arrange a couple handfuls of greens, cherry tomatoes, olives, cucumbers and avocado as shown. Add about ¼ of the farro mixture and ¼ of the chickpeas, along with a generous amount of sauce. Finish the dish by squeezing some lemon juice over the greens (and a drizzle of olive oil if you’d like). Serve.
Notes
- On leftovers: Store leftover components individually (farro, chickpeas, yogurt, greens) in the fridge. Then reheat the farro and throw your next salad together when you’re ready to eat. The yogurt and farro should keep for at least a few days.
On substitutions: Feel free to substitute wheat berries for the farro, but they will probably take longer to cook. Green olives would be a fine substitute for Kalamatas. Crumbled feta would be a nice addition as well.