This Beet and Farro salad is vibrant, nutritious, and features delicious winter flavors such as pomegranate, walnuts, and of course beets and farro grains over a bed of arugula and baby kale. The dressing is made up of cashew butter, beet powder, and a squeeze of lemon.
The Power of Beets
Beets have been an incredible addition to my diet – not only are they chameleons (they can be transformed in so many ways!) they provide a ton of nutritional benefits including:
- Hemoglobin Formation. Women have a higher tendency to be low in iron which can result in anemia. Iron is found in your body’s red blood cells (hemoglobins) so if you’re low in hemoglobins, you will be low in iron. Beet juice helps form more hemoglobins which increases the iron in your body which is key in defeating anemia.
- Carries Oxygen. I like to drink beet juice prior to working out as it increases oxygen capacity (beets raise nitric oxide in the body), increases blood flow, and improves muscle function.
- High Amount of Nutrients with Few Calories. Beets are a great weight loss food as they contain tons of nutrients including protein, vitamin C, iron, folate, manganese, potassium, fiber, and magnesium.
- Improved Digestion. Beets have a good amount of fiber which helps aid in digestion. Fiber goes directly to your colon rather than heading to your digestion system first which helps with constipation.
Easy Meal Prep
I love prepping salads as it requires little effort and saves a lot of time. Salads are great as you can really dress it up however you want – I like my salads mostly raw with a small amount of cooked foods to add substance. In this case, the salad is mostly raw (lettuce, pomegranate seeds, walnuts) with cooked farro and beets. I used beets from Love Beets Organic which are precooked so all you need to do is chop them up and add them directly to your salad.
Beet + Farro Salad
Ingredients
Salad
- 2 cups arugula
- 2 cups baby kale
- 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 - 2 cup chopped beets I used the precooked option from Love Beets Organic
- 1 cup cooked farro
Dressing
- 1/4 cup cashew butter
- 1 tsp beet powder add more / less depending on your desired pigment
- 1 squeeze lemon juice
- 2 - 4 tbsp water add more / less depending on desired consistency
- pinch sea salt & pepper
Instructions
- Arrange all salad ingredients in a bowl and serve with dressing. To make the dressing simply mix all ingredients together in a jar and adjust accordingly.