Buckwheat Salad

The slightly acidic salad dressing helps enhance the flavors of the buckwheat, while ingredients like the cucumber help tame it. All in all, this is a beautifully balanced and well-rounded meal that can be served as is or as an accompaniment.

Today, we will have a look at exactly how to make this amazing and versatile salad and most importantly, the incredible seed it is made from, buckwheat. We will also give you some helpful tips and tricks for making it and look at some ways you can adapt the recipe to your liking.

Is Buckwheat Gluten-Free?

Yes, it is! Despite the name, buckwheat actually has no relation to wheat and therefore doesn’t contain any gluten. It is really a type of seed closely related to rhubarb and therefore naturally contains a ton of nutrients.

Buckwheat groats can be used as a gluten-free substitute for many other grains like spelt, barley, and rye. They can all be used in the same ways, but have different cooking times and very different textures and flavors.

Buckwheat can also be found in flour form which means it can be used to make various gluten-free baked goods like cakes, pancakes, and muffins.

Ingredients

The main ingredient in this gluten free salad recipe is cooked buckwheat. Cooking buckwheat is extremely easy and you only require the groats, water, salt, and a bit of oil. 

For this mouth-watering salad, you only need fresh cucumbers, red onions, cabbage, and a few different herbs for flavor. These ingredients are all very easy to find and complement each other beautifully. They are also easy to substitute if you cannot find them or if you want to change them up a bit.

 The lemon and olive oil dressing and pickled beets finish off the salad and add a bit of tang and acidity.

Alternative Add-Ins

This salad is extremely flexible and the flavors can be easily adjusted. Although this is a vegan buckwheat salad, it is very easy to add meat too if you like. You can add sweet and sour beef strips, barbeque chicken pieces, or bacon bits.

If you are close to the coast you can turn it into a seafood buckwheat salad and add some delicious pan-fried prawns, or a seafood mix.

If you are not after vegan ideas, you can top this salad with some cheese of your choice. Ours would definitely be feta cheese.

Also, you can add nuts like pecans, walnuts or cashews and make it even healthier.

If you are lucky enough and have some fresh fava beans on hand, use them in this salad!

Instructions

This buckwheat lunch recipe is incredibly easy to make and most of it can even be made in advance! The ingredients are also extremely easy to substitute and you can even change the entire flavor profile!

First, cook the buckwheat groats. Follow the instructions in our basic method of cooking buckwheat to perfectly cook your groats. Allow the cooked and fluffed buckwheat to cool down completely before using it.

Second, prepare the vegetables and make the dressing. Once all the vegetables have been prepared, combine them with the cooled buckwheat and mix well.

To make the dressing, simply combine lemon juice, salt, and olive oil. Pour the dressing over the salad, stir it well and serve with pickled beets on top.

Tips

 To make meal prep much easier, you can pre-make the buckwheat and store it in the fridge. When you are ready to make the salad, simply combine all of the ingredients and serve.

The dressing can also be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Shake the dressing before adding it to the salad to make sure the oil and lemon juice combines well.