- This roasted fennel and farro salad is quick, seasonal and plant-based.
- Jennifer Garner skips olives but keeps it colorful with pomegranate and thyme.
- The dish comes together in under an hour with minimal stovetop time.
As wonderful as it is to put time and effort into complex, difficult recipes to wow your guests during the holidays, sometimes it really pays to have some easier holiday recipes up your sleeve. After all, we’re not all professional chefs. Lucky for us, actress Jennifer Garner has posted an easy, speedy side dish on her Instagram, just in time for Thanksgiving.
This roasted fennel and farro salad comes together quickly and with minimal time standing over a stove. Plus, the bright colors fit in with the season and provide a nice deviation from the usual holiday fare.
The salad recipe Garner features on her “pretend cooking show” is originally from BODi Fitness, a fitness and nutrition hub. Garner says she likes the recipe because it’s “seasonal, flavorful, but easy.” Since this recipe checked all her boxes, she decided to share it with her followers—and share a shout out to her beloved KitchenAid Grain & Rice Cooker, too.
To follow in Garner’s footsteps, you’ll need dry farro, some bulbs of fennel, a pair of sweet bell peppers, olive oil, salt, pepper, olives, pomegranate seeds, white balsamic vinegar and some fresh thyme. After preheating the oven to 400 degrees F, Garner toasts a cup of farro, a wheat-based ancient grain, in a dry pan on medium heat, turning it with a spatula until it has a nice, nutty aroma. Then she uses her handy rice cooker—but you could just as easily prepare the farro according to the package directions.
As the grains cook, Garner combines two thinly sliced large fennel bulbs with a chopped medium yellow bell pepper in a bowl with oil, salt and pepper. She gently coats the veggies with the oil and tosses the mixture.
The vegetables go into the oven on a baking sheet or roasting pan for 35–40 minutes. Make sure you only have a single layer of vegetables and that you turn them once in a while until they are done—you’ll want them fork tender.
To assemble, place the farro and veggies in a serving dish and toss with ¼ cup pomegranate seeds, three tablespoons white balsamic vinegar and two teaspoons fresh thyme, finely chopped. The original BODi recipe also includes ¼ cup Kalamata olives, but Garner omits these in her version since she doesn’t like olives. If you prefer their strong flavor, by all means, include them.
The final version will be particularly attractive on the table along with your other Thanksgiving dishes, as those jewel-like pomegranate seeds and sweet peppers add lots of color. Garner said it’s a great dish for “more than Thanksgiving” too, so you can try it out any time. Plus, it’s completely vegetarian and vegan, so there’s an option for your guests alongside other dishes which they may have to forgo.
If you’re not much for farro or fennel, consider one of our favorite salads for Turkey Day, like our Broccoli-Apple Crunch Salad or Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Burrata. With all those cozy sides and mains on the table, it’s always nice to have something bright and fresh to dig into.
