Organic Purple Barley Summer Salad Recipe
This is one of the simplest barley side salad recipes you can make.
It makes a wonderful side dish served hot or cold. You can prepare this recipe in advance and take it on your next picnic as a healthy and tasty alternative to a potato salad. Perfect as leftovers, the flavors blend nicely after it sits in the fridge overnight.
In fact, this organic purple barley salad recipe is so good the next day, we always make the full recipe no matter how many we are serving - just so we can have leftovers.
A bright and delicious salad using this most ancient of grains - organic purple barley.
Ingredients:
1 pound organic wholegrain organic purple barley
6 cups water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons red wine or Katz Gravenstein Apple Cider Vinegar
2 tablespoons basil olive oil
2 garlic cloves - minced
2 ripe tomatoes - seeded and diced
1 cucumber - seeded and diced
1 each yellow and orange bell pepper - seeded and diced
1/2 pound fresh feta cheese - cut into 1/2 inch cubes
6-8 stems of fresh mint leaves - rolled and cut into ribbons
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Place barley in a cooking pot, cover with cold water, and add salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then turn heat down to low and let barely simmer for 40-50 minutes. If you like your barley chewy, then 40 minutes should do. If you like it softer, then simmer an extra 5-10 minutes.
2. Drain barley and let cool while you finish preparing your veggies.
3. Add vegetables and cheese to cooked barley in a large bowl and toss well.
4. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over low heat in a small frying pan. Add minced garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes - long enough to bring out the garlic flavor, but not long enough to brown the garlic.
5. Remove oil and garlic from heat and place in small mixing bowl. Add all remaining ingredients except the mint - basil olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Whisk well, and pour dressing over barley mixture. Toss together and taste to adjust salt and pepper.
6. Top with ribbon-cut mint and serve immediately, or place salad covered in the fridge over night and top with mint just before serving cold.
serves 10-12