Wheat Berry Salad

Name: Wheat Berry Salad
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked wheat berries; 4 green onions, chopped thinly; 1 small red onion, finely chopped; 1 small sweet red pepper, finely chopped; ½ cup fresh mint, chopped; ½ cup parsley, chopped; 4-5 walnuts, chopped; 2 tablespoons pomegranate arils; 1 lemon, juice squeezed; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses; 1 teaspoon salt

Jump to Recipe·Print Recipe

This wheat berry salad is a delicious and healthy salad option that can be served for lunch or as an accompaniment at dinner. It contains nutty and chewy wheat berries, a variety of fresh herbs and vegetables, pomegranate arils and walnuts. This salad is vegan and vegetarian, but can easily be adjusted to make it meatier!

Wheat berry salad with greens and pomegranate arils in a white bowl and a spoon inside it.

This is one of our favorite grain-based salads because of its versatility. It makes a refreshing summer salad for lunch, but can also be served in the winter.

It is a perfect way to include wheat berries into your diet. If you love our vegan buckwheat salad or Turkish bulgur salad, then you will fall in love with this recipe too.

Jump to:

Why We Love This Recipe
Ingredients
Alternative Add-Ins
How to Make
Serving Suggestions
FAQs
More Grain Recipes
More Salad Recipes
📖 Recipe

Why We Love This Recipe

We absolutely love this incredibly easy and delicious wheat berry salad recipe. Here’s why:

It is an incredibly quick and easy salad to make. You basically only have three easy steps; combine the salad ingredients and make the dressing.
You can use precooked and even frozen wheat berries. This will save you a ton of prep time, especially when you don’t have any to spare!
It is a healthy salad. Unlike a ton of other salads you find these days, this wheat berry salad recipe only contains fresh and nutritious ingredients.
It is an incredibly flexible recipe. This recipe is very easy to adjust. You can substitute virtually any of these ingredients, but also easily add some of your own. If you are not following a vegan diet, you can add some meat or cheese if you’d like.

Ingredients

The hero ingredient of this wheat berry salad recipe is of course the wheat berries. To cook them is incredibly easy and they don’t even need any seasoning! Have a look at our in-depth post on How To Cook Wheat Berries.

Cooked wheat berries in a white bowl and a spoon in it.

Our recipe includes a wide variety of authentic Mediterranean ingredients including red and green onions, sweet red peppers, mint and parsley, walnuts, and some juicy pomegranate arils.

Green onions, one sweet red pepper, fresh parsley and mint, wheat berries, red onion, olive oil, pomegranate molasses, half lemon, pomegranate arils on a light background.

The onions help add a balancing flavor to the slightly sweet and nutty wheat berries and very sweet red pepper and pomegranate seeds. They also provide texture and a beautiful color.

We prefer using walnuts with this recipe as their nutty flavor complements that of the wheat berries. You can however choose virtually any nut you’d like.

Lastly, we finish off our salad with a delicious tangy salad dressing. It only uses some lemon juice, olive oil, and luscious homemade pomegranate molasses.

Alternative Add-Ins

This is an incredibly flexible recipe in which you can easily substitute any ingredient and even add some additional ones.

You can substitute the walnuts with virtually any other kind. Some of our favorites include almonds, pecans, and cashews. They all go well with wheat berries in this salad.

If you want to make your salad extra bulky and filling, you can add virtually any other vegetable that is normally used in salad. This can include cucumber, cabbage, carrots, roasted zucchini or eggplants.

And if you want to give it an extra protein punch, add in some beans. We always love including roasted seasoned chickpeas or some shelled fava beans.

This is a vegan and vegetarian recipe, but you can very easily add in some leftover roasted chicken pieces or meat like crispy bacon, salami pieces, pancetta and fried spicy chorizo.

How to Make

This is an incredibly healthy, delicious, and easy salad that can be whipped up in less than 10 minutes. What makes this salad unique is that you can easily substitute any ingredient and even add in some others.

Cooked wheat berries, diced red onions and sweet red peppers, chopped herbs and walnuts arranged in a white bowl.

First, prepare the ingredients. Make sure to cook your wheat berries until they reach al dente, not mush. Just like when you do when cooking buckwheat. You can also chop all of your other ingredients. Combine all the salad ingredients together and set them aside.

Second, make the dressing. To make the delicious salad dressing, simply combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk until they are combined.

Pomegranate molasses dressing is being poured from a glass bowl over wheat berry salad.

Finally, pour the dressing over the salad and make sure to give it a good toss. Garnish your wheat berry salad with some pomegranate arils and serve while it’s fresh.

Serving Suggestions

This wheat berry salad makes the perfect light summer lunch as is, but it can also be served as an accompaniment.

Salad with wheat berry grain and herbs in a white serving bowl and served in two black bowls and a grey napkin on the side.

You can top this salad with some grilled halloumi cheese slices if you want to add some protein in it.

You can serve it alongside a delicious warm winter soup like our our famous Tomato Orzo Soup.

This wheat berry salad also makes fantastic flavorful accompaniment to chicken or meat dishes like rich Turkish Chicken Kabobs or lamb shish kebabs. It is great to serve with seafoods like whole baked sea bass too.

FAQs

What can I substitute for wheat berries?

We would highly recommend substituting wheat berries with extra coarse bulgur wheat. It has a very similar consistency and flavor so will blend in seamlessly.
For gluten-free substitutes, choose something like rice, quinoa, or buckwheat.

Can I make a warm salad with wheat berries and roasted vegetables?

You can definitely use these cooked wheat berries in warm salads as well.

Can I make the salad ahead of time?

Yes, you can. Keep it in the refrigerator for up to a day. It is better to store it without the dressing. Pour the salad dressing over the salad right before serving and give it a good toss.

More Grain Recipes

More Salad Recipes

Wheat berries, herbs, onions and pomegranate arils combined in a white bowl and a spoon in it.

As always: If you make this recipe, let us know what you think by rating it and leaving a comment below. And post a pic on Instagram too—tag @give_recipe so we can see!

Sign up for the FREE GiveRecipe Newsletter to get the new recipes into your inbox! And stay in touch with us on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram for all the latest updates.

📖 Recipe