Recipe — Cooking with Farro

A few months ago I read that eating farro was healthy. I’d never heard of farro, so the first thing I did was to research it. Farro is a whole grain dating back to the times of the Egyptians and Romans. Today, it is a staple in Mediterranean cooking. I guess I should have expanded my repertoire beyond pasta years ago.

My next challenge was to find it in my local stores. My usual grocery store didn’t carry it, so I ordered a bag on Amazon. Amazon offered several options—I bought the Bob’s Red Mill brand, because my husband will eat anything Bob’s Red Mill makes. (Later, I found the same item in the PriceChopper near me, so now I have a local source.)

The third issue was finding a recipe to make with the farro. The bag had a basic farro recipe on it, and I made that.

The last challenge was getting my husband to eat it. But when I told him it was from Bob’s Red Mill and was supposed to be healthy, he dug in. We both liked the texture—nutty and hearty, not quite crunchy.

Still, I decided we needed to try something with a little more flavor than farro on its own. So again, I turned to Google, and I found several options for making it in my Instant Pot. I combined some ingredients from one recipe and some from another.

Here’s what I do with farro in the Instant Pot these days:

1 cup farro
2 cups liquid — water or chicken stock (or vegetable broth for vegans)
1 cup mushrooms, tomatoes, or other vegetables — it’s OK to combine any leftover vegies you have
1 cup leftover meat (or add another cup of vegies for vegans or add meat on the side)

***

Combine all ingredients in your Instant Pot
Set it for 20 minutes, and then use the natural release method until the button goes down

These portions work well in my 3-quart Instant Pot. You could double the recipe if you have the larger Instant Pot, but this amount makes a good one pot dinner for two with leftovers. Add another vegetable (or meat if you didn’t put it in the pot), bread, and/or a salad for a complete meal. Farro has a heartier texture than rice, and the one pot casserole seems heartier than rice casseroles.

My daughter-in-law makes farro for salads. I’ll have to ask for her recipe. Though farro seems to be a grain you can mix with many things.

Do you have a farro recipe you want to share?