I feel like I need to take a breath after writing that overly-wordy recipe title…

I decided to post this separately to my ode to brussels sprouts, but consider it a complement. With its multitude of colours, textures and flavours, this is a super comforting and easy winter salad which uses very seasonal ingredients. I say easy, but the recipe makes it look hard. I promise it isn’t actually, I’m just bad at arranging things.

Store any excess ingredients separately in the fridge for use throughout the week in lunchtime salads – this is my personal method of weekday sustenance.

Ingredients

Serves 2 as a generous main, 4 as a side

For the salad:

Ingredients

1/2 quantity pomegranate molasses roasted brussels sprouts (recipe)

1/2 small butternut squash (ca. 300g)

2x carrots (ca. 200g)

1 tbsp olive oil

75g rocket (or other) salad leaves, washed & spun

1/2 cup cooked farro

1/2 pomegranate, seeded

75g goats cheese

1/2 quantity honey mustard lemon dressing (recipe below)

*Note: allow all cooked ingredients to cool for a bit before adding to the salad, or the leaves will cook too.

Method

Roasting the Squash & Carrots

1- Preheat oven to 180ºc.

2- Peel carrots and cut into rounds. Peel squash if that’s what you prefer (I keep the skin on), deseed, and cut into roughly equivalent sized chunks.

*If, like me, you like to keep extra roasted vegetables in the fridge for ease of salad composition, feel free to cut & roast the whole squash – here I’m talking in terms of quantities for this salad alone!

3- Place cut veggies in a bowl and pour over olive oil and salt, mixing until covered.

4- Place on roasting tray in the oven and set a timer for 45 minutes.

Cooking Farro

As above, I cooked more farro than was necessary for this recipe alone and intend to use it throughout the week. For 1/2 cup cooked farro, I would estimate that you need 1/4 cup uncooked farro, cooked in 3/4 cup of stock. Here’s a cooking guide.

For the honey mustard lemon dressing:

This makes more than you’ll strictly need for the salad, but keeps well for a long time in a sealed jar and is fabulously versatile.

Ingredients

Juice of 1 lemon (ca. 40ml)

1tbsp red wine vinegar

1/2 tbsp dijon mustard

1/2 tbsp honey

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper, to taste

Method

1- Stir all ingredients except for olive oil until well-mixed.

2- Add olive oil and mix until emulsified.

Finally! Composing the Salad

1- While the farro, sprouts and squash cook, cut up your pomegranate. I sadly have no quick cheat method to doing this, but you’re welcome to browse the internet for one – please let me know if you succeed. Set aside.

2- Place salad leaves on your chosen serving plate / bowl, mix in cooled farro, half of sprout, carrot, pomegranate, squash and dressing quantities.

3- Artistically (if you could call what I did that) top the mix with the remaining veggies and crumbled goats cheese, then top with pomegranate seeds and remaining dressing (if you deem it necessary).

Leftover rating: it depends. As mentioned, the dressing will keep well for use on other salads. The component ingredients of the salad will also keep well separately – I personally like to roast more veggies and cook greater quantities of grain than strictly necessary for easily composed lunch salads throughout the week. Once the salad has been mixed, however, it will not keep quite so well as the leaves will become soggy. I personally would still keep leftovers and put up with slightly soggy leaves the next day, but that’s a matter of preference.

Swaps / suggestions: swap farro for pretty much any grain or pulse; black or green lentils would work well, as would old-fashioned pearl barley. If you have trouble finding farro, I have a guide here. I used rocket leaves, but any salad leaves will do – chicory would look particularly pretty, or if I were in the U.K. where kale doesn’t cost 10 quid per kilo I’d be tempted to use roasted kale. Another form of pumpkin will also suffice in the place of butternut squash.

Enjoy! Thank you for reading!

-Alice