Today, a fresh recipe for a first course: summer grain salad, the one-dish meal for hot days.
Easy and quick to prepare, but most importantly, you can prepare it in advance during the cool evening hours or early in the morning before the temperatures rise too much. The dressing is all raw, and you only need to cook the grains or rice, or if you really don’t want to turn on the stove, you can use couscous. Additionally, if you have very little time, there are pre-cooked grain mixes in cans.
I used a mix of grains that I find ready-made at the supermarket, which includes wheat, spelt, rice, oats, and barley, but you can use your preferred grain. For the dressing, I used cherry tomatoes, mini mozzarella balls, and added color with bright yellow corn kernels and pieces of black olives. The extra touch is given by the arugula pesto which can also be replaced by a classic basil pesto, a pea pod pesto, or a cherry tomato sauce which is out of this world.
Now let’s see together, step by step, how to make this recipe.
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- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Very Inexpensive
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 4 servings
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer
Ingredients for the Fresh Grain Salad
- 10.6 oz pre-cooked 5-grain mix
- 5.3 oz cherry mozzarella balls (or mozzarella pearls)
- 3.5 oz cherry tomatoes
- 3.5 oz sweet corn, canned, drained
- 2.8 oz black olives (pitted)
- 2 tbsp arugula pesto
- to taste olive oil
- to taste salt
- 2 leaves basil
Tools
- 1 Scale
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Pot
- 1 Bowl
Let’s Prepare the Grain Salad Together
In a pot, bring the water to a boil to cook the grains; in the meantime, let’s prepare the dressing. Wash the cherry tomatoes and cut them into quarters, or into eighths if they are large, and place them in a bowl. Also, add the mozzarella balls, also cut into quarters or eighths if using cherry-sized ones. I found mozzarella pearls, which are perfect for this kind of preparation.
Add the corn and the pitted black olives cut into rings to the bowl, then break two basil leaves with your hands and place them, along with the pesto of your choice, over the tomatoes. Season with oil and salt and mix.
Drain the cooked grains and cool them under running water, then add them to the bowl and mix to combine the ingredients. Let it cool before placing it in the fridge.
A Curly Cook Suggests
The summer grain salad keeps well for a couple of days in the fridge in an airtight container.
