Hearty warm farro salad of ricotta and blue cheeses melted into the cooked grain, topped with balsamic grilled kale and plums.
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This farro and kale salad is stunning and delicious enough to serve at a dinner party. It can be a vegetarian main dish, or a side dish for the meat eaters at the table. Serve sgroppino for a dessert cocktail. Or if you have extra plums left over, make this plum frozen yogurt for dessert!
🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
For the all of the ingredients, measurements and directions, go to the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post.
- Farro - barley can be substituted.
- Vegetable broth - or use Better Than Bouillon - Roasted Vegetable Paste.
- Ricotta cheese - either full-fat or low-fat are fine in this recipe.
- Blue cheese
- Kale - I prefer curly kale in this recipe instead of Dinosaur kale. Baby spinach can be substituted.
- Plums
- Balsamic vinaigrette - recipe in the below recipe card.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products and foods I use in my kitchen. This means that at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. To view my entire storefront of recommended kitchen tools and equipment, check out my shop on Amazon.
🔪 Recommended Equipment
- Medium sized pot
- Whisk
- Grill pan or large skillet
📝 Instructions Overview
Detailed instructions for making this farro and kale salad are in the recipe card below, but here's a quick overview!
Step 1
Make the farro. Simmer farro grain in broth with garlic and salt. Toss with the cheeses until they melt into the cooked farro.
Step 2
Whisk. Whisk together the vinaigrette.
Step 3
Grill. While the farro cooks, toss the kale with a little vinaigrette, and grill in a dry grill pan on the stovetop, or in a grill pan designed for a BBQ grill. Toss the plums with a little vinaigrette, and grill.
Step 4
Assemble. Top the cheesy farro with the grilled kale and plums, and drizzle with the vinaigrette. Serve warm.
👩🍳 Preparation Tips
It's best to get all the ingredients ready before starting this recipe. While the farro cooks, you can make the vinaigrette, grill the kale and plums. If everything is ready to go, you'll be able to serve this salad while the farro is warm.
💡Ideas for Possible Variations
Replace the kale with baby spinach. If you take this path, don't grill it. Instead, toss the spinach in with the cheese and warm farro. The spinach will wilt. Top with grilled plums.
📇 More Farro Dishes You Might Like
Summer Vegetable Soup with Farro
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Warm Ricotta Farro Salad with Grilled Kale and Plums
Equipment
- Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot
- fine mesh strainer
- 2 Whisk
- Large skillet or stove top grill pan
Ingredients
Farro Salad
- 1 cup dried farro grain
- 2 cups vegetable broth or water
- 2 garlic cloves smashed
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ cup fresh ricotta cheese drained
- 1 ½ tablespoon blue cheese I use Point Reyes Blue
- 10 - 12 medium curly kale leaves center tough stem removed
- 3 medium plums pitted, halved, and sliced into 8 slices per plum
Dressing
- 1 ½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
- ½ teaspoon honey
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- few grinds of freshly ground pepper
- 4 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Bring 2 cups of vegetable broth to a boil. Add the garlic, salt, and dried farro. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook for 30 minutes or until chewy-tender. If there is any liquid left, strain the farro, but reserve the liquid. Return the farro to the pot to keep it warm.
- Whisk the ricotta and blue cheeses together in a small bowl. Stir in the thyme and salt. Fold into the warm farro.
- While the farro cooks, whisk all of the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl except the olive oil. Once the salt is dissolved, continue whisking while drizzling the olive oil into the vinegar base.
- Drizzle 1 ½ tablespoons of the vinaigrette over the whole kale leaves. Light rub to ensure complete coverage.
- Heat up a dry grill pan or large skillet over high heat on the stove. Add the leaves in one layer - it's okay if they're touching. "Grill" them for one minute and flip. The edges should be crispy and a little charred. "Grill" for an additional 30 seconds to a minute. Remove and allow to cool. Repeat until all the kale is grilled. (You can use your outside grill too, using a heated BBQ grilling pan or grill sheet.)
- Drizzle two teaspoons of the vinaigrette on the plums and toss. Add them all at once to the hot dry grill or skillet. Cook for 30 seconds or until just beginning to soften.
- Transfer the farro mixture to a serving plate. Top with the grilled kale and plums. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette.
- Serve warm.
CCU
Unpacking would take time, I bet, especially with us bloggers' collection in the kitchen 😛
Lovely mixer!
And this ricotta farro is very exotic but it looks ridiculously delicious!
Cheers
CCU
Karen @ Karen's Kitchen Stories
Susan, I just love this post. Love it. I have the same issues, and I also have the same Sur la Table platter you feature in this post. See? Can't not pay attention to these thing! Beautifully written.
Beth
Sounds like a delicious entree! And I can't imagine what I'll do when the day comes that I move to a smaller kitchen.
Lynda - TasteFood
Such a beautiful shot of your sitting area! Hang in there. We are still unpacked and have grown accustomed to Danish moving boxes as decorative accessories. In the meantime, this recipe hits all the right notes in my book.
lizthechef
You made me laugh out loud - and before 8 in the morning! I hear you, sister!
Traci
I love Kale with anything! I will have to try this--great SRC pick!
shari@myjudythefoodie
thanks for the kind words and I love how you altered the recipe. Now I have to try too! Great pick!
Tara
Such a wonderful combination of flavors! Great pick!
rossi
love the centerpiece!!!
Dorothy at Shockingly Delicious
Love your narration of the process of downsizing and finding places for things. I dread it, actually, although I am sure it is freeing once it is done.
I also love your KitchenAid centerpiece. You made it look like it belongs there!
www.GetCookingSimply.com
YUMM... My kind of recipe, Susan!
RE down-sizing, better to do it now than 20 years from now. Btw, I know a really good professional organizer in Marin.
Lynn H @ Turnips 2 Tangerines
This would be perfect served at our Holiday Dinner~ The colors would be beautiful~ Great SRC pick~ Lynn @ Turnips 2 Tangerines
SallyBR
I moved last year, to a kitchen half the size of my old one. Now I am renovating our kitchen and I just want to sit down with you and give you a hug. I hear you. Loud and clear.
let's both of us hang in there, ok? This too shall pass
Loved the recipe, and the photo of your table and chairs with the mixer is absolutely gorgeous!
Have a nice reveal day!
Deb
A pinnacle of home cooking is the realization that too much is just, well, too much. I haven't moved anywhere and I have lots of storage...that is all full! I need to take class with you!
A gorgeous salad, perfect for the slide into fall.
Emily @ Life on Food
I just moved into an older home this past weekend. Right now we have 4 stuffed boxes of kitchen ware and absolutely no where else to put it. Ahh! But don't you know I am not going to get rid of a single thing.
Melissa
What an interesting recipe. I've never had farro before, but I love all of the other ingredients in this salad, so I"m sure it would be a hit in my house! Great pick this month! 🙂
Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen
I was laughing so hard reading your post. I moved into a small house after years in a very large house, with a huge pantry and tons of cupboard space. I went through (and actually am still going through) they dilemma of constantly rearranging things to try and find the best "flow".
Love this dish. I wonder if I could get my picky meat eater to try it?
Happy Reveal Day!
Bobbi ~Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen
Kirstin
Yum! This sounds yummy and different 🙂
mjskit
What an enjoyable read! Your experience was the exact opposite of mine. I went from a tiny kitchen to a huge one where I could bring stuff in from the garage that belonged in the kitchen. Your use of the mixer as a centerpiece is ingenious. It looks great there! I do have to say that for the winter time, my stovetop smoker would definitely deserve a place in the kitchen. In fact, it would probably just sit on the stovetop. 🙂 Congratulation on your successful, but challenging move! Dried farro? I've never heard of it. In fact I've never had farro. this recipe definitely has my curiosity running wild. I'm going to have to check into to this closer. It looks like a beautiful dish and I love the plums and the blue cheese!
Paula @ Vintage Kitchen Notes
That first paragraph made me laugh! I'm in the process of downsizing my kitchen because I'm moving, and don't know where to start.
This is a splendid salad Susan! And the pic is gorgeous.
Mary Francs
Moving is always such a big deal. I know just what you mean about getting the kitchen back in order. It's sort of fun to sort and see what you have, but then you really also would be fine to have it over and done. Good luck with the rest. And the salad looks so pretty!
amy @ fearless homemaker
This sounds SO good! And I love the kitchen aid centerpiece! We live in a charming, but tiny, 1930s tudor, so I know the challenges of finding space. =)
Laura Dembowski
Moving is always a tough task, but you'll figure it out! This looks incredible. Love those grilled plums!
Mary @ Fit and Fed
Kitchen/dining/office/photography/junk table? With the mixer on it? That's pretty dang multi-purpose, I can tell you really are hurting for space! When it comes down to it, our espresso maker would take a prime spot over the mixer in our house, not sure my husband would get to work without it (or at least he'd spend a lot more at Starbuck's). Love this idea of the grilled kale and plums heartened up with farro and blue cheese. I've got to do some things with plums before they disappear for the season, this would be a good choice!
Hannah
I was nodding my head the whole time I was reading...we moved into our tiny cabin in August and It was quite the project to find homes for all the kitchen items - lots of getting creative with wall space and hanging from the ceiling! I, too, have shelves in the shed now and that's where my Kitchen Aid lives...I'm lugging it back and forth a couple times a week (great work out!) and I'm wondering how often I'll do this once it starts snowing. Glad to see you're settled in now and I love this farro dish! The grilled plums sound divine. We have a marvelous farm next to us and they grow heirloom grains, including incredible farro. I'll be making this soon!
Tamara Coleman
Wow, this looks and sounds amazing! 🙂
http://www.prettybitchescancooktoo.com