Nourishing Fall Farro Salad with Butternut Squash
This fall farro salad recipe is the perfect vegetarian dinner or side salad! It’s packed with nutritious ingredients like farro, butternut squash, pomegranates, and goat cheese. Serve warm or cold, you choose!
In case you’re new here, I absolutely adore making grain salad recipes. As a Registered Dietitian, I love that they are nutritious, easy to make, versatile, and keep well in the fridge. When I’m thinking up new healthy salad recipes, I more often than not include a whole grain like quinoa, brown rice, or farro.
This salad will certainly be your new favorite farro bowl recipe once you give it a try. This recipe is vegetarian, soy free, and nut free.
What is Farro?
Farro is a type of ancient wheat grain that can be traced all the way back to Mesopotamia. It’s been a part of Italian cuisine for centuries, and is perfect for soups, stews, risottos, and grain salads. You can even make delicious risotto with farro!
Farro has a chewy texture and a nutty, pleasant taste. It holds its shape very well when cooked, and doesn’t get mushy like some rice varieties. The texture and flavor of farro pair perfectly in with butternut squash, kale, goat cheese, and pomegranate in this autumn salad!
Find even more recipes with farro on my blog!
Ingredients in fall farro salad
You need less than 10 ingredients to make this butternut squash and farro salad recipe, aside from salt, pepper and olive oil. It’s incredibly simple to make.
- Farro
- Butternut Squash
- Kale
- Pomegranate seeds
- Goat cheese
- Pepitas
- Apple cider vinegar
- Honey mustard
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- Cinnamon
Ingredient substitution suggestions
- Quinoa, buckwheat, or wild rice are all good farro substitutes if you can’t find farro.
- Try using crumbled feta cheese in place of goat cheese for a similar flavor.
- Sub dried cranberries or diced apples for pomegranate seeds.
Step by step instructions
- First, peel and dice your butternut squash. Toss in olive oil, salt, pepper, and cinnamon. Roast in the oven.
- While the butternut squash roasts, prepare the farro on the stovetop according to the package instructions.
- Wash and finely chop the kale.
- De-seed the pomegranate, if you are using fresh pomegranate.
- Prepare the salad dressing by shaking the ingredients together in a jar.
- Put all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Pour over the salad dressing, and use salad spoons to toss everything together. Enjoy!
Is farro gluten free? No, farro is not a gluten free grain. It is a form of wheat, which inherently contains gluten. Farro does contain less gluten than regular wheat, so it is sometimes tolerated by those with gluten intolerance. But if you have a gluten allergy/celiac disease, you need to avoid farro. Try quinoa or rice in place of farro to make recipes gluten free.
Farro cooking instructions
How you cook your farro will vary slightly by the type you buy. There are three types of farro available: whole farro, semi-pearled farro, and pearled farro. Whole farro takes the longest to cook (about 40 minutes), and pearled farro takes the least amount of time to cook (about 15 minutes).
Here is my favorite easy way to cook farro:
- Combine 1 cup of farro with 2 cups of water in a small saucepan. Add a generous pinch of salt.
- Bring water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover.
- Cook farro for about 15 minutes until grains are tender and chewy.
- Drain the excess water and fluff farro with a fork.
- Season however you please or add it to your recipe!
Storing farro salad
One great thing about this recipe is how well it keeps in the fridge. Enjoy it as a warm farro salad right after you prepare it, then enjoy it cold or room temperature as leftovers!
Store leftover farro salad in an airtight container for 3-5 days in the fridge, dressing and all.
Farro health benefits
Farro is quite a nutritious whole grain to include in your diet. One fourth cup of dry farro provides:
- 6 grams of plant-based protein
- 5 grams of dietary fiber
- 20 percent of your daily niacin needs
- 15 percent of your daily magnesium and zinc needs
- 4 percent of your daily iron needs
Farro, along with other whole wheat products, is higher in soluble fiber than other whole grains. This particular type of fiber is beneficial for heart health, as consuming 5-10 grams of soluble fiber per day can help lower “bad” LDL cholesterol.
Whole grain foods like farro are some of the best dietary sources of antioxidants. Long term consumption of antioxidant-rich foods may be protective against certain diseases.
Butternut squash health benefits
Butternut squash, a popular and versatile winter squash is a healthy food to enjoy. One cup of cooked butternut squash provides:
- 6.6 grams of dietary fiber
- 1.8 grams of plant-based protein
- 582 mg potassium (12 percent of your daily needs)
- 1143.90 mcg Vitamin A (127 percent of your daily needs)
- 31.0 mg Vitamin C (34 percent of your daily needs)
- 59.45 mg magnesium (15 percent of your daily needs)
Butternut squash is also a good or excellent source of thiamin, niacin, folate, Vitamin E, and copper. Butternut squash is high in beta-carotene, an powerful antioxidant that gives squash it’s bright orange color. Other good food sources of beta-carotene include pumpkin, papaya, carrots, and broccoli.
Let me know if you love this recipe by leaving a comment or star rating below, and check out Instagram and Pinterest for more healthy lifestyle inspiration. Thanks for stopping by!
PrintFall Farro Salad with Butternut Squash, Kale, Pomegranate, and Goat Cheese
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: serves 6
- Category: salads
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This fall farro salad recipe is the perfect vegetarian dinner or side salad! It’s packed with nutritious ingredients like farro, butternut squash, pomegranates ,and goat cheese. Serve warm or cold, you choose!
Ingredients
- 1 medium butternut squash, peeled, de-seeded, and diced
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1 1/2 cups dry pearled farro
- 4 cups kale, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
- 1/3 cup crumbled goat cheese
- 1/4 cup pepitas or chopped toasted pecans
Salad Dressing
- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp honey mustard
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Toss the butternut squash in the olive oil, cinnamon, and a generous shake of salt and pepper. Roast for 25-30 minutes, tossing once halfway through, until fork tender and beginning to caramelize.
- While the squash roasts, prepare the farro according to package instructions.
- Combine all the salad dressing ingredients, plus a shake of salt and pepper, in a jar. Shake very well to combine.
- Once the butternut squash and farro are finished cooking, place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
- Pour the salad dressing over everything and toss well to combine.
- Serve immediately, or store in the fridge to enjoy later.
Notes
Storing farro salad
One great thing about this recipe is how well it keeps in the fridge. Enjoy it as a warm farro salad right after you prepare it, then enjoy it cold or room temperature as leftovers!
Ingredient substitution suggestions
- Quinoa, buckwheat, or wild rice are all good farro substitutes if you can’t find farro.
- Try using crumbled feta cheese in place of goat cheese for a similar flavor.
- Sub dried cranberries or diced apples for pomegranate seeds.
Store leftover farro salad in an airtight container for 3-5 days in the fridge, dressing and all.
Keywords: fall farro salad, farro and butternut squash salad, warm farro salad
So easy. Great for mealprep
★★★★★
Thanks, Sam! I love this recipe for meal prep too!
Making this for thanksgiving, it looks great! wish there was a print option, though!
★★★★★
So excited to hear you are making this for Thanksgiving! Enjoy! You’ll find an option to print the recipe at the top of the blog post, underneath the title and categories. Hope this helps!
I made this tonight as a side dish for chicken. We loved it! I tasted it before adding the feta and think I like it better without the cheese. But, it was still very yummy with it. Thank you for this recipe. It’s a new family favorite.
★★★★★
Hi Darci! Thrilled to hear that you and your family loved this recipe. It certainly is still tasty without the feta cheese! I appreciate your comment and star rating so much.
This salad is amazing. I make it every year for an annual fall party I throw and it’s the highlight of the night. All my friends say they look forward to this salad each year. This is definitely on my favorites list.
★★★★★
This salad is amazing. I make it every year for an annual fall party I throw and it’s the highlight of the night. All my friends say they look forward to this salad each year. This is definitely on my favorites list.
I commented before but forgot to add…
I sub the quinoa for the farro and instead of just kale I do a mixed baby greens (spinach, arugula, and others). Sometimes I skip the pepitas if I don’t have any on hand.
★★★★★
Annie, Thank you so much for this great review! I am thrilled to hear how much you and your guests love this salad. It’s one of my all time favorites as well! I appreciate the helpful substitution notes as well.
Incredible new staple in my kitchen. The comfort smell of the cinnamon and the healthiness of this makes it absolutely perfect! Great as leftover for my lunch too!
★★★★★
Thank you, Brooke! This is one of my all time favorites 🙂 So glad you love this recipe as much as I do!
Cooking this for Thanksgiving today, so far so good!
★★★★★
Yay! I hope you enjoyed it 🙂
I made this for Thanksgiving and everyone loved it! Such a Great recipe!
★★★★★
Yay! I’m so glad to hear that. Thanks for taking the time to leave a review 🙂
We made this for a vegetarian thanksgiving dinner and it was great. Making it again on a cold January day. It is so tasty and healthy.
★★★★★
So glad to hear you loved this recipe! Thanks for sharing a review and rating 🙂