Cypriot Grain Salad

This is a wonderful salad for entertaining! It has everything you want in a salad - great texture and flavour. I am often asked for this recipe. It is very simple to make and I have included some shortcuts to reduce the time even more, meaning you can make this salad in under 30 minutes!

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Prep Time: 30

Cook Time: 10

Total Time: 40

Course: Salad

Cuisine: Australian, Greek

Keyword: cypriot grain salad, gluten-free, grain salad, rice

Servings:

Calories: 392kcal

Author: Katrina | Katy's Food Finds

Equipment

Pot if using
Frying pan

Ingredients

Salad Ingredients:

1 bunch of coriander chopped
1/2 bunch of continental parsley chopped
1/2 red onion finely chopped
1 c freekah,quinoa or cracked wheat (see notes)
1/2 c puy lentils (see notes)
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
3 tbsp pinenuts
3 tbsp flaked almonds
1/4 c currants
2 tbsp dried cranberries
3 tbsp finely chopped caperberries or capers stalks removed if using caperberries
1 lemon, juice of
3 tbsp olive oil extra virgin
salt to season
2 tbsp pomegranate seeds

Yoghurt Dressing:

1 c greek yoghurt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp honey

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Grains:

Prepare the grains:
Option 1:Cook the freekah and lentils separately in boiling water until they are just cooked. Drain well and set aside to cool.
Option 2: Using 1 cup of McKenzies Superblend Mix (see notes), cook in boiling water as per packet instructions. Drain well and set aside to cool.
Time Saving and Gluten-free option: 1 x 400g tin of lentils, rinsed and drained plus 1 packet of Sunrise Steamed Brown Rice and Quinoa Mix (cook in microwave for 1 minute 30 secs as per packet instructions). See notes.

Yoghurt Dressing:

Mix yoghurt, ground cumin and honey together in a jug and refrigerate until required.

Salad:

Toast all the nuts and seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pinenuts, flaked almonds) in a large frying pan over medium heat, stirring often, until they are nicely toasted. The pinenuts will colour the most. This will take about 3-5 minutes so keep an eye on them as they can go from nicely toasted to burnt very quickly. We definitely do not want any burnt bits in the salad, so no multi-tasking while you are toasting the nuts and seeds! ☺️ Put the toasted nuts and seeds aside to cool completely.
On a large flat platter, add the coriander, parsley, onion, grains, seeds, nuts, capers, currants, *cranberries, lemon juice and olive oil. Mix well and season to taste.
Serve the salad topped with the remaining cranberries and garnish with pomegranate seeds. Serve with the Yoghurt Dressing on the side.
*Reserve half of the cranberries to put on top of the assembled salad as its nice to have the colour of these on top for presentation.

Notes

The nutrition calculations above are based on freekah as the grain.

Method/Tips

Please don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients! This salad is very easy to bring together and a lot of it can be made in advance with just the assembly and dressing added when its time to serve.

My time-saving tip is for the grains. Instead of cooking the freekah, cracked wheat or quinoa, I sometimes buy a 250g packet of Sunrise Brown Rice and Quinoa and microwave it (you can just steam it, if you don’t use a microwave), and also buy a 400g tin of lentils and use these as well. This takes less than 5 minutes to prepare both. Combine them together and your grains are done! We actually preferred this mix better and the salad is then also gluten-free! Just make sure you rinse and drain the lentils in a sieve before using.

If you have the time and want to boil your own grains, the other grains I use in this salad is the McKenzies Foods Superblend Lentils, Freekah and Beans Mix which is super conventient as they are all in one packet.

Once the grains are prepared, the rest of the salad is easy to put together. Just a bit of chopping of ingredients and toasting of the nuts and seeds.

Prepare Ahead:

Prepare the grains that you are using. If you are using my time-saving option, then just prepare the lentils (rinse and drain) as the rice is best popped in the microwave for 1.5 minutes about 15 minutes before you assemble the salad.
Toast the nuts and seeds together in a large frying pan over medium heat. Keep an eye on them and stir so they all brown evenly. This is an easy step but trust me when I say that I have been through many packets of pinenuts over the years from burning them...no multi-tasking while you’re toasting the nuts and seeds ? . The pinenuts in particular, brown very quickly. Once they are toasted, put them in a bowl or small jar and set them aside to cool completely.
Measure out the currants and cranberries. Set aside.
Finely dice the red onions and caperberries. Set aside at room temperature, covered.
Chop both the parsley and coriander. Put into a bowl lined with damp paper towels. Cover the top with another damp paper towel and put in the fridge until required.
De-seed a pomegranate. Save the juice and rest of the seeds for another use. Use some of the seeds for the salad.
Prepare the Yoghurt Dressing and refrigerate.
Combine the lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil in a jar, shake and set aside at room temperature.

Nutrition

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