Beetroot, lentils and wheatberries

This is a meal in a bowl, with all sorts of depths and exciting tastes and textures and colours. You might call it a salad? It comes together really quickly if you have the beetroot, lentils and wheatberries (or you could sub chickpeas and brown rice) already cooked and in the fridge. I had baked the beetroot while I had the oven on to roast some other veg a couple of days ago, so when I wanted to eat this I just had to cook the lentils and wheatberries and prep the other stuff. If I'd done the lentils and wheatberries previously it would have been even faster; as it was the remaining food prep pretty much fitted into the time they were cooking, so still quite speedy.

Baked beetroot:
~5 medium beetroot, washed and trimmed
few sprigs thyme
3-4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp water
salt+pepper

Boiled lentils and wheatberries:
1 cup wheatberries
1 cup brown or green lentils
1 bay leaf
stock powder

Seeds, herbs and spices:
1 tbsp coriander seed
1 tsp cumin seed
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1/2 tbsp sesame seeds
zest of 1/2 a lemon
1-2 tbsp chives, chopped
1-2 tbsp parsley, chopped
1 tbsp mint, chopped

Dressing:
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp white miso
1-2 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper

To prepare the beetroot, heat the oven to 400F. Wash the beetroot thoroughly and trim. Chop into large / even sized chunks (in half or quarters) and put in a lidded ovenproof dish. Add whole, peeled garlic cloves, thyme (fresh or dried), seasoning, olive oil and water. Put the lid on, put in the oven and bake for 30-40 min, until tender to the point of a knife. Remove from the oven, let cool, then cut into chunky dice.

Put the lentils in a small pan with enough water to cover them by 1cm. Add the bay leaf and a sprinkling of stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for ~30 min, until done. Put the wheatberries in a different pan with ~1 1/2 cups water and a sprinkling of stock. Bring to the boil and simmer 25-30 min, until tender.

Heat a frying pan and dry fry the coriander and cumin seed until fragrant. Let cool a little, then transfer to a spice mill and grind. In the same pan, dry toast the sunflower and sesame seeds until lightly golden and starting to pop. Chop the herbs and zest the lemon.

In a serving bowl, beat the dressing ingredients together with a fork. Add the cooked, still warm wheatberries and lentils and mix well together. Add the beetroot (and garlic and juices) and ground spices and toss some more. Check it is not too hot, then, immediately before serving, add the toasted seeds and fresh herbs. Toss once more, taste and add more salt, pepper and balsamic if needed, and eat.


This is really hearty and versatile - an excellent Autumn / Winter salad protocol. Versions of this have been seeing me right for weeks, as lunches and quick dinners. So long as I have some cooked lentils and wheatberries (or other grain) in the fridge, plus some kind of roasted veg - this week it is butternut squash roasted with za'atar - I can grab some herbs from my pots and mix this up in minutes.