What’s affordable, hearty, nutritious, and delicious? A grain salad from your food storage, of course!
General Instructions for Preparing Grain Berries for Salad
My favorite method, which just happens to be perfect when you don’t have electricity, cooking fuels, or time to spend over the stove (like in emergency situations), is to let the berries soak overnight in a thermos of hot water. Bring your water to a boil and add it to the thermos. But, if you don’t want to wait overnight, bring water to a boil, add grain, boil until the berries are soft. Depending on what type of grain you’re using, it could take 30 to 60 minutes to soften. You could also use your crockpot.
I got so excited about using our
Provident Pantry food storage grains that I couldn’t stick to just wheat berries. We’ve created four delicious recipes from hard red wheat, hard white wheat, spelt, and oat groats. I'm pretty sure that you’re going to love these salads, but don’t take my word for it. Try them out and let us know what you think!
Mediterranean Spelt Berry Salad
For the Salad:
1 cup
Provident Pantry Spelt
3 cups salted water
1 cup Provident Pantry FD Zucchini
½ cup Provident Pantry
FD Carrots
1 cup Provident Pantry FD Tomatoes
½ cup Provident Pantry
FD Green Onions
For the dressing:
½ cup olive oil
3-4 TBS Balsamic vinegar
¼ tsp Provident Pantry Italian seasoning
¼ tsp Provident Pantry Salt
¼ tsp Provident PantryPepper
¼ tsp Provident Pantry Garlic powder
2 tsp Provident Pantry
Brown sugar (more to taste)
Directions
- Bring 3 cups salted water to a boil. Add spelt and cook until tender. You can either cook the spelt right before you make your salad, or the night before by adding spelt with double the amount of boiling water into a thermos and letting it sit overnight. Strain and set aside.
- Reconstitute zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, and green onions in the water used to cook the spelt; drain.
- Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, combine all ingredients for the dressing. Mix thoroughly.
- Pour dressing over salad and serve immediately.
Fruity Wheat Berry Salad
For the Salad:
1 cup Provident Pantry hard red wheat berries
2 TBS Provident Pantry Chicken Flavored Broth
3 cups water (added an additional 2 ¼ cups)
1 cup Provident Pantry FD Apple Dices (We used Emergency Essentials' Provident Pantry Fuji Apple Slices because that's what we had on hand.)
½ cup Provident Pantry FD Pears
¾ cup Provident Pantry FD White Chicken (hydrated in the broth the wheat berries were cooked in)
For the dressing:
¼ cup crushed Provident Pantry FD Apricot
½ cup vegetable oil
3-4 TBS white wine vinegar
2 tsp
Provident Pantry Brown Sugar (more to taste)
Directions
- Bring 3 cups water to a boil. Add wheat berries and cook until tender. You can either cook the berries right before you make your salad, or the night before by combining berries with 2 cups boiling water in a thermos and letting it sit overnight. Strain and set aside.
- Reconstitute broth, apple dices, pears, and chicken using the water you cooked the wheat berries in; Drain.
- Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl.
- Crush dried apricots into powder. In a small bowl, combine apricots with brown sugar, oil, and vinegar. Drizzle dressing over salad and serve immediately.
Oat Groats Salad with Chicken and Spinach
For the Salad:
1 cup
Provident Pantry Oat Groats (rinse after softening)
3 cups salted water
1 cup Provident Pantry FD White Chicken Pieces
½ cup
Provident Pantry FD Spinach
1 cup
Provident Pantry FD Tomatoes
For the dressing:
½ cup olive oil
3-4 TBS red wine vinegar
¼ tsp
Provident Pantry Black Pepper
¼ tsp Provident Pantry Salt
2 tsp
Provident Pantry Brown Sugar (more to taste)
Directions:
- Bring 3 cups salted water to a boil. Add groats and cook until soft. Strain and set aside.
- Reconstitute chicken, spinach, and tomatoes using the water you cooked the groats in; drain.
- Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine all dressing ingredients. Pour over salad and mix well.
- Serve immediately.
Wheat Berry and Veggie Salad with Sesame Dressing
For the Salad:
1 cup
Provident Pantry hard white wheat
3 cups water, salted
½ cup
Provident Pantry FD Celery
1 cup
Provident Pantry FD Peas
1/2 cup
Provident Pantry FD Green Onions
1 tsp Provident Pantry FD Minced Garlic
Optional: ½ cup
Provident Pantry FD Beef TVP or 1 cup Provident Pantry FD Chicken Pieces
For the vinaigrette:
½ cup vegetable oil
2 TBS sesame oil (or to taste)
3-4 TBS apple cider vinegar
¼ tsp
Provident Pantry Black Pepper
¼ tsp Provident Pantry Salt
2 tsp
Provident Pantry Brown Sugar
¼ tsp Provident Pantry FD Minced Garlic
Directions:
- Bring 3 cups salted water to a boil. Add hard white wheat and cook until tender. Strain and set aside.
- Reconstitute celery, peas, and green onions in water used to cook the wheat; drain.
- Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine vinaigrette ingredients; mix well. Pour dressing over salad and toss well.
- Serve immediately.
9 comments
Jodi DiGaetano
I have one of the 1 Year kits with many #10 cans of Hard Red Wheat or Hard White Wheat. Are these wheat berries? Can I use them to make flour or reconstitute them and use them in salads like this recipe above? In other words, if I wanted to make bread would I need a grain mill? Any advice or help is appreciated. Also, if they are berries, can they be germinated and planted to grow more wheat?
beprepared
Hi Louann,
You can rehydrate the veggies as the first step in creating the salad. All of the freeze-dried vegetable cans we sell have instructions on the label for how to rehydrate that specific veggie. Usually, to rehydrate vegetables, you let them sit in a bowl of water for about 5 minutes. But some veggies require boiling water, so it just depends.
Angela
LouAnn
How/when do you rehydrate the vegies that are in the salads?
Dave Johnson
Wheat berries are excellent for Taboli salad. To the cooked wheat berries add chopped onion, cucumber, etc. Make the dressing with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. (Or find a recipe for it made with bulgar and substitute the wheat berries.)
Richard
Martha, it turns out that oil is not the enemy that we once thought it was. It is high glycemic, processed foods that are the problem. Consuming healthy oils like olive oil help the body to feel satiated so that we don’t want to consume cookies, donuts and other bad snacks. The fad of low-fat foods was actually a very bad idea, since the oils were often replaced with sugars and other glycemic fillers. As long as it is healthy oil, we should eat up!
beprepared
Good idea, Martha. I really like oil — especially olive oil — but you don’t have to use it. You can probably use something like applesauce in the fruit-flavored salad. (I haven’t tried it out but I’m guessing you’d only need a few tablespoons of applesauce, and you’d probably decrease the amount of vinegar and sugar as well.) If someone still wants to use oil, he or she might cut down the amount, or use a different kind of oil (like flax or grape seed oil). We developed the dressing based on what we thought people would have in their food storage. If you come up with any good recipes, let us know. We’d love to try them out! ~ Steph
Martha
All salads don’t need all that oil – would love to see healthier recipes without oil! That said, thanks for the whole grain recipes!
beprepared
Hi, celiacphoenixbird. You could really substitute any grain you like into these salads. Quinoa would be an excellent choice for any of them, as would rice or wild rice. —Sarah
celiacphoenixbird
Have you tried using non Gluten grains for any of these salads? I love salads… but don’t know which grains would work well in each of the above salads. Just an idea, as there are many of us ‘out here’ who need food storage ideas that are basic, and gluten free, Thanks!