This Fall Salad with Fruit Grains and Greens reflects the colors of fall as well as the sentiment of fall. Greens, dried fruits and the addition of farro make this colorful salad comforting, rich, and colorful. Leave out the pancetta and you’ll have a vegan salad.
I know that fall and winter is all about comfort food, but every now and then we need, I need, to get some kind of a salad in the circulation. We all like comfort food, but our body may protest from all that comfort. This salad is full of goodness, flavor, color, fiber. If you want to go meatless, leave out the pancetta and you’ll have a vegan salad.
This Fall Salad with Fruit, Grains and Greens is made from spinach, arugula, farro, golden raisins, dried apricots and pancetta, tossed with a dressing. It is great cold, but also very nice luke-warm. For instance, you can leave the farro slightly warm, or add the pancetta, while it is still hot. It will give the salad an additional dimension. Crunchy from the greens, chewy dried fruits, crispy bacon and nutty farro.
I have made a few other salads with farro thus far, Farro Baby Kale and Apple Salad – a combination of savory and sweet. Also a more summer salad Farro Salad with Mango Chicken and Feta. You may not be able to get fresh mango right now, but you could use mango, or apricot, or peach from a can instead. Including the current one, 3 examples of salads with farro, each different, but at the same time, each a variety of textures and colors and flavors.
This particular salad would be easy to take to work as lunch, just separate the greens and the dressing from the rest and mix before you start eating.
Fall Salad with Fruit Grains and Greens
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup farro
- 4 ounces pancetta
- 1 cup spinach
- 1 cup arugula
- 1/2 cup raisins golden
- 5 apricots dried
- salt and pepper
Dressing
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon vinegar or Verjus Blanc
- 1/2 teaspoon honey
- 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Instructions
- For the dressing combine olive oil, vinegar, honey, mustard. Warm just slightly, add the raisins and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Allow to cool and add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
- Cook farro according to directions on packaging and allow to cool. Cooking time is usually 20 minutes to reach ‘al-dente’, but if you like it softer, cook longer. Once cooked to desired tenderness, cool down.
- Cut the pancetta in small cubes and cook until crispy in a skillet. Once browned, drain on paper kitchen towel and disgard grease.
- Cut dried apricots in small pieces.
- Mix spinach, arugula, farro, apricots and pancetta in a bowl and add dressing. Toss to coat and add salt and pepper if needed.
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