It’s easy to think of spring salads as light and delicate, because many of the first vegetables available to mix into them are tender greens and herbs, rather than the meaty tomatoes and sweet peppers that ripen in the summer garden. By mixing spring crops into a hearty, filling base, a salad like the one I share this week my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon can carry a meal.

Grains like pearl barley and farro, beans and other legumes, starchy vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes, and breads like a sourdough loaf for panzanella and Twice-Baked Sourdough Pita Chips for fattoush all turn a couple of handfuls of raw vegetables into a full meal. On the weekends, I often cook a double batch of Bulgur Taco “Meat” or beans to turn into Vegetarian Red Beans and Rice and then fold the rest of the batch into fresh lunch salads throughout the week.

Learn more about cooking pearl barley and get the complete recipe for Spring Pearl Barley Salad in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

I enjoy the slightly sweet acidity of the tomatoey salad dressing I shared in last week’s column on this week’s pearl barley salad, but many other dressings taste just as delicious while giving the greens and grains an entirely different flavor. I shared the links to some of my favorite salad dressing recipes—from lemon tahini to green goddess—in last week’s blog post.

Just as you can swap the dressing on pearl barley salad, you can toss a batch of Tomato and Herb Salad Dressing with many other filling salads. Here are just a few other hearty salad recipes on the blog that taste delicious with this dressing and can accompany or act as the main dish for lunch or dinner. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Warm Quinoa and Feta Salad
• Herbed Bean Salad
• Chickpea and Vegetable Couscous Salad
• Potato Salad with Pickles and Creamy Dressing
• Sweet Potato-Mushroom Salad

You can also learn more about cooking buckwheat grouts, a gluten-free option that can be used instead of whole grains to make filling salads, in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.