Bulgar. Most commonly known in the Greek dish, tabbouleh. While tabbouleh is great, sometimes I'm just not feeling something Greek. So, I decided to give the humble bulgar a second chance at something, well, not Greek. This salad was thrown together literally with ingredients I had in my kitchen or garden and thrown together quickly. It makes a great lunch salad and would be great as a main entree topped with a little grilled chicken. And ok, if you're feeling the Greek thing, even a little feta cheese mixed in would be a nice addition. This is somewhat a more hippy-dippy take on a classic "rice and beans" combo, except the "rice" is the bulgar and the "beans" are the lentils. I like to use black beluga lentils - they have a nice small size and don't get mushy in turn making your salad more of a "dip" and the color is beautifully contrasted with the rest of the ingredients. Plus you can buy them pre-cooked and cooled at Trader Joe's for practically pennies!Ingredients:
1 cup bulgar, cooked according to directions and cooled
1 cup cooked and cooled lentils
3 stalks celery, quartered lengthwise and diced
1/2 cucumber, diced
3/4 cup dried cranberries, roughly chopped
3 green onion stalks, chopped
2 cups arugula (or more for us arugula fanatics!), roughly chopped
2 TB fresh squeezed orange juice
1 1/2 TB sherry vinegar
1 TB honey
2 TB grapeseed oil (or other light oil)
Salt and pepper*
Combine the bulgar through the arugula in a large bowl. In a separate small dish, whisk together the remaining ingredients and toss with the bulgar mixer to combine.
* Be sure to season this salad well. Enough salt and pepper can make a world of difference in the quality of a chop salad like this.
Devonly,
Yours
