Zucchini & Asparagus Farro 'Risotto'with toasted pine nuts and creme fraiche
Green garlic (sometimes known as spring or new garlic) is a less mature, milder tasting garlic. It's got a budding garlic bulb at the end and has green shoots. If it's easily found, it's definitely worth using to add flavor to this farro 'risotto' - our no-stir version of risotto using farro.
Ingredients
- Farro, pearled and uncooked (for 2 meals) - 2 cups
- Green garlic (sub 1 clove garlic for each green garlic stalk) - 2 stalks
- Onions - 1 , diced
- Zucchini - 2, diced
- Asparagus - 1 lb, sliced
- Cannellini beans (14 oz / 397 g can) - 1 can, drained and rinsed
- Pine nuts - 1/3 cup
- Cooking oil - 1 Tbsp
- Butter - 1 Tbsp
- Basil, dried - 1 1/2 tsp
- Creme fraiche (sub sour cream) - 1/4 cup
- Lemon juice - 2 tsp
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Farro - This makes enough for Thursday’s dinner. Bring a saucepan of water to boil. Give it a generous sprinkle of salt and add farro. If you bought semi-pearled or husked farro, it should take about 25 minutes to cook until al dente, tender but not soggy. Reserve half for Thursday. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Green garlic or garlic - If using green / spring / new garlic, chop it as you would with green onions. If using garlic, just crush or mince. (Can be done up to 4 days ahead)
- Onions / Zucchini / Asparagus - Prep as directed. (Can be done up to 3 days ahead)
- Beans - Drain and rinse.
Make
- Heat a saute pan medium-high heat. Add pine nuts and toast until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Return pan to medium-high heat and add cooking oil and butter. Once heated / melted, add green garlic / garlic, onions, and basil to heated fat with a sprinkle of salt. Saute for ~3 minutes, until softened and fragrant.
- Next add in zucchini and asparagus and saute for 4 to 7 minutes, until veggies are mostly done to your liking.
- Fold in beans and cooked farro (remember to reserve half the farro for Thursday) and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Finish with creme fraiche, lemon juice, and pine nuts. Taste and then add salt and pepper as needed. Enjoy!
- If you want to get a head start on your slow cooker soup for tomorrow, you can.
Nutrition Facts
Reviews
This meal has 39 reviews
Not my favorite salmon recipe - not sure if i found the spring garlic as in Hungary where I work and live none had ever heard of such ingredient....
The salmon was solid, but the salad was the real star!! So good! (Used ramps on salmon instead of green garlic, and it was great)
This was not my favorite salmon recipe from Cook Smarts, but it was still good. The zucchini/farro salad is what elevated this from 2 stars to 3. That was an outstanding salad.
We loved the salmon. The salad was ok, but felt like it was missing something.
2.5 stars. I didn't have any problems with this dish - overall it tasted good and was simple to prep. Just wasn't very impressive plated or taste-wise. Though we were stuck with cloves - I think green garlic, scapes or ramps wouldve definitely added some of the appeal our filets were missing!
I liked the zucchini - we both found the salmon underwhelming, though salmon is usually one of my favorites.