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Irresistible Vegan Farro Salad: Swiss Chard, Olives, and Garlic Delight

farro salad close up

Farro Salad with Swiss Chard, Olives, and Garlic (Vegan)

This farro salad is quick and wholesome, with swiss chard, olives, garlic, carrots and olive oil.

Farro is type of grain, similar to rye berries or wheat berries, but with a very neutral taste and chewy texture.

I like how the grains are large and eating a bowl of it can easily fill you up. (In contrast to quinoa, which is quite messy and doesn’t leave me feeling full.)

Swiss chard (rainbow) is a colorful leafy vegetable similar to spinach in terms of flavor, but maybe a little more delicate.

The original recipe includes feta cheese but didn’t have any on hand. So thought I would give this a try without it, essentially making it vegan and vegetarian! So two wins there!

The longest part is cooking the farro!

I’ve made this several times before and it’s always been a winner.

Vinegar, garlic, olives and pepper are the prominent flavors in this salad.

If you don’t like vinegar I suppose you could get away with using some kind of citrus like lemon or lime, but you definitely need some acid in there to make the flavors pop!

The red wine vinegar could also be substituted with white wine, apple cider or even coconut vinegar. (I think red wine and sherry are my favorites!)

This salad comes together in less than 30 minutes – Start to finish.

So if you’re short on time, this is an easy one to make.

I always double it, because the portions are really only enough for two people and I always want more after it’s all gone!!

thank you for reading!

In case you missed them, here are some of my other farro recipes!

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Farro Salad with Swiss Chard, Olives, and Garlic (Vegan)

farro salad close up

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  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Cook Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 25 minutes
  • Yield: 2 people 1x
  • Category: Main Dish, side
  • Cuisine: New American

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 cup farro ((uncooked))
  • 1 bunch Swiss chard (stems separated and chopped into 1/4in., leaves roughly chopped)
  • 1/2 cup carrot (peeled and chopped into 1/4in. pieces)
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil (+ more for serving)
  • 2 Tbsp garlic (crushed)
  • 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar (use 12 Tbsp to taste; alternatively use Sherry vinegar!)
  • Freshly ground Pepper (to taste)
  • black olives (to taste, i used kalamata)

Instructions

  1. Cook the farro according to package instructions. When done cooking drain.
  2. Prepare carrots, chard stems and garlic. Separate chard leaves.
  3. Take chard leaves and put into a pot or pan with 1/4 cup water and steam covered for 2-3 minutes to cook. Once done, remove from heat and allow to cool.
  4. In the same cooking vessel, add some olive oil, crushed garlic and saute carrot and chard stems (~5-7 minutes.) Season with salt and pepper.
  5. Toss the farro, chopped chard leaves, chard stems, and carrots together in a big bowl.
  6. Drizzle with 1-2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and 1-2 tablespoons olive oil. Crack some black pepper and add in olives (and feta if using). Eat like a shark!

Notes

(be careful not to overcook farro, mushy farro is no bueno!!)

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8 thoughts on “Irresistible Vegan Farro Salad: Swiss Chard, Olives, and Garlic Delight”

  1. You made this pretty easily ( I like easy) is there any substitute for the Swiss chard or will substituting it mess up the recipe

    1. Hi Jiselle, you could easily substitute any chard or radish greens since they have similar flavors. Radish greens have thick stems to provide that crunchy texture like chard. Spinach would work also.

      I could see this being eaten with arugula but that would just make it a very different salad 😀 hope this helps and let me know if you try it out!

  2. Wow this looks great! I always hated olives up until recently, so I am always intrigued by different recipes involving.

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Konnichiwa! (Hello!) I'm Pat Tokuyama, a Japanese tofu cookbook author, who travels for music, food, and adventure. If you like Japanese tea, checkout some of the newestorganic japanese tea, matcha bowls and noren and more!

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