Deb Perelman’s Winter Slaw with Farro
Author Notes:
Deb Perelman had yearned for a grain salad with an inverted proportion of grains to vegetables for some time before tasting the inspiration for this one at the West Village restaurant Via Carota. Finally, she felt more confident to make her own. Since then, she’s seen scant proportions of grains peek through in other restaurant salads (often fried freekah for toasty, popcorn-like crunch) and made all sorts of variations herself. She loves switching in walnuts and “diced pillowy bits of Taleggio or Robiola instead of Parmesan cheese.” You can also swap any dried fruit for the apricot.
Adapted very slightly from Smitten Kitchen Every Day (Knopf, 2017).
Serves: 6 to 8
Prep time: 30 min
-
1/2
cup (100g) finely diced dried apricots
-
1/4
cup (60ml) white wine vinegar, plus more to taste
-
1
small-medium (2 pounds or a bit less than 1kg) head green cabbage
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1 1/3
cups (145g) cooked farro, cooled (from about 3/4 cup uncooked)
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1/3
cup (45g) roughly chopped roasted almonds
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2
ounces (55g) Parmesan, thinly shaved on a grater with a vegetable peeler
-
3
tablespoons (45ml) olive oil, plus more to taste
-
1/2
teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
-
1
pinch freshly ground black pepper, more to taste
- Place the apricots in a small bowl with the vinegar, and set aside while preparing the other ingredients.
- Cut the cabbage in half, and remove the core (and eat the core as a crunchy snack); then cut the halves again so you have quarters. With a mandolin or a knife, slice the cabbage into very thin ribbons. You’ll have about 12 cups total, which will seem ridiculous, but it will wilt down with dressing on it. Pile it into your largest bowl.
- Add to the bowl the apricots and their vinegar, the farro, almonds, and most of the Parmesan, plus the olive oil, salt, and a good helping of freshly ground pepper. Toss to combine, and try to give it 15 minutes to let the ingredients settle a little before making seasoning adjustments; then add more vinegar, Parmesan, oil, salt, and pepper to taste. Perelman emphasizes this: "With so few ingredients and most of them fairly mildly flavored, you cannot skimp on seasoning or texture; I hope everyone toasts their almonds well and uses salt and pepper until all the flavors are lifted/present."
- Heap the slaw on plates in piles, and top with remaining Parmesan. The slaw's textures are best for serving to company at this point, but this will keep for up to 1 week in the fridge for great take-to-work lunches.
- This recipe is a Community Pick!
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Such a fab salad. I love all the textures and the balance of sweet dried apricots and salty parmesan. Definitely toast your nuts well and season generously, as Deb suggests. I've been eating this all on its own for work lunches but it would be great as a side to simple grilled salmon or chicken thighs too.
Great for lunches, and I added some bacon too for a little extra crunch and protein.
I have made this a few times now and found my perfect version! I omit the parmesan (to make this vegan), and use salted almonds- a but more, probably 1/2 cup. I also used a suggestion here and add in the segments from 2-3 mandarin oranges. It’s SO delicious!
I used a nappa cabbage my second batch and that was excellent too.
I made a big batch and brought some each day or lunch either adding some chickpeas or cubed baked tofu.
Love this. Made it with purple cabbage that gave it beautiful color. The contrast of textures makes it interesting and the flavors mesh well. Farro works very well here! Will be make It again
Beautiful winter salad! The colors alone are so light and pretty. Crunchy, salty, sweet, and tangy. When I added everything and tossed it all at once, a lot of the goodies got lost on the bottom. It worked better for me to create a dressing from the apricot vinegar with the olive oil, dress the cabbage and farro separately, toss them together, then top with apricots, almonds and Parmesan. Thank you for this lovely recipe. Will make many times to be sure.
Made this tonight for an impromptu dinner party and it is fantastic! Definitely going to be making this one again.
My takeaway from this recipe is the vinegar-soaked apricots! Otherwise far too dense and cloying, sweet, dried apricots become a much more appealing fruity accent for a salad. I'll keep these on hand!
This is incredible. Made this today for lunch (and for the week) and I could not be happier. The only change was that I doubled the almonds (to use up what I had left). Make sure to use good quality finishing olive oil. I've already sent this recipe around to friends, I cannot put the fork down. I agree some green onion would be nice, but we prefer lunches with out onion aftertaste on work days.
I wouldn't try this again. Not appealing to look at or overly tasty. I jazzed it up with some diced red onion, additional cider vinegar and diced red/orange peppers and still not enough zing for me. But will definitely try farro again and I like the concept of adding farro etc to future salads.
I would agree. Made this today and added scallions and cranberries. There wasn’t enough apricots and the whole thing was blah to look at and bland. I’ll take your advice and add red onion and cider vinegar.
Made this for dinner - yum! For a no dairy option I added orange slices - clean, bright and fresh tasting!
I made this today, exactly as written. It’s a fantastic recipe. It’s crunchy, salty, nutty, tart...everything I love. This will be a salad I make often.
Made this for lunch today, excellent! Thanks for a different take on slaw.
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