Herbed Chicken Wheatberry Salad

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In the quest to use up last week’s CSA veggies, I started this evening’s dinner prep this afternoon by cooking a pot of wheatberries. Then I started pulling things out of the fridge, and this salad began to take shape.  It is a salad that can be modified to use whatever you happen to have–so don’t go out and buy every single thing I have listed here–go shopping in your own fridge and see what jumps into the salad bowl. The end result was a gorgeous salad that I could eat every night for a week without tiring of it.

Herbed Chicken Wheatberry Salad

• Cooked wheatberries–I found these in th health food aisle at my grocery store. I’m sure you could also find them in bulk at your local natural food store.  I cooked about 1.5 cups in several cups of water, letting the water boil first, then adding the dry wheatberries, then allowing it to come back to a boil.  I then turned the burner down to simmer and let the wheatberries cook for an hour or so, until they were soft and chewy. The end volume was about 3-4 cups.  I drained these and put them in the fridge to cool for a couple of hours.
• Salad–I used the last 3 cups of an enormous salad I had made with all the different greens from last week’s CSA box–arugula, amaranth leaves, a miscellaneous salad mix, romaine lettuce, and beet greens. But please, use whatever dark green leafies you have on hand–don’t go hunting down amaranth if you don’t already have it!
• Herbs–I went out to my herb pot and collected a large handful of basil, a smaller handful of Italian parsley, and a large sage leaf; I chopped all that up and threw it in.  You really do want fresh herbs if you can get them, but they needn’t be this exact combination. Try different combinations and see what you like best.  If you have to buy fresh herbs from the store, pick one of those and see what you think.
• Chopped fennel stalks and leaf–about 1/2 cup.
• 1 orange bell pepper, chopped (plus a couple stray slices of red bell peppers that happened to be in the salad)
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 1 large chicken breast, chopped into bite size pieces, and sautéed in olive oil, with about 1 TBSP garlic, 3 chopped scallions and 2 fennel bulbs, chopped into bite size pieces.
• 4 oz. Feta cheese (or shredded Romano, as the mood strikes you)
• 1 batch of Laura’s Secret Weapon Vinaigrette

I threw all of the above into a large plastic food storage container, sealed the lid, and shook hard to mix. (You want to be very confident that the lid seal is tight before doing this.    ) I put the salad back in the fridge until dinner time, and then served with slices of perfect Crenshaw melon. (If I’d had some crusty bread, I would’ve served that too, but alas…  Another thing I would’ve added if I’d had them is good kalamata olives.)

This is the kind of salad that’s only going to get better by tomorrow’s lunch, when all the flavors will have gotten to know each other and started partying together.

Buon appetito!

Laura

One side note:  if you cook the wheatberries and chicken ahead of time, you can assemble this salad minutes before serving, and it will be almost no-cook. Plus you can then serve it chilled.

Also: if you want this to be vegetarian, simply omit the chicken.

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Filed under Eating seasonally/CSA, Point-worthy Food, Resourceful cooking, Vegetable dishes, Vegetarian/vegetarian-friendly, methods, recipes, salads