Wheatberry Salad with Apples & Walnuts Recipe on Food52 (2024)

Author Notes

I love salads—I eat some version of salad for lunch practically every day. But in the winter, I need heat. I frequently use different grains—rice, quinoa, wheatberries—to make a salad that’s warm and substantial. For this salad, I used wheatberries (but farro or a mixture of grains would work also) and made a dressing by stewing apples and onions together with ginger, a little champagne vinegar and red pepper flakes. The salad is tasty and filling without being heavy—a perfect mid-winter (or late spring--when there's still a nip in the air--) lunch. - drbabs —drbabs

Test Kitchen Notes

Drbabs’ salad is a great balance of warmth in the nutty, chewy wheatberries and a sweet and sour compote dressing that gets a flavor boost of fresh ginger and crushed pepper (both of which I was generous with), combined with cool from sweet and tart apples, fragrant fennel and peppery arugula. Each component is tasty in its own right, but together they become a balanced and irresistible whole. I could not stop eating it – we had it alongside roast chicken and I polished it off the next day for lunch. —aargersi

What You'll Need

Ingredients

• Wheatberries & Dressing
• 1 cupwheatberries
  
• water and salt for cooking wheatberries
  
• 1 tablespoonvegetable oil
  
• 1 pinchkosher salt
  
• 1 small sweet onion, cut into fine dice
  
• 1 small sweet apple (honeycrisp), cut into fine dice
  
• 1 small tart apple (Granny Smith), cut into fine dice
  
• 1 teaspoongrated fresh ginger
  
• 1 pinchred pepper flakes (optional)
  
• 1 tablespoonchampagne (or apple cider) vinegar
  

• Salad
• 1-4 tablespoonsolive oil, depending on taste
  
• ¹/₂ bulb, fennel, sliced with a mandoline
  
• 1 small sweet apple, cored and cut into quarters, and sliced with a mandoline
  
• 1 small tart apple, cored and cut into quarters, and sliced with a mandoline
  
• ¹/₂ cupbaby arugula, finely chopped
  
• 1-2 scallions, white and light green parts only, finely chopped
  
• More vinegar, salt and pepper to taste
  
• ¹/₄ cupwalnuts, lightly toasted
  
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste