Celebrate the arrival of spring with this Spring Bulgur Wheat Salad with Avocado Herb Dressing. This bulgur salad is simple to make and full of delicious ingredients made from the spring harvest.
Well who would have thought that it’s actually bulgur wheat and not bulgar wheat?! Good thing I figured this out before writing the post. Though Spring Bulgar Wheat Salad does have a nice ring to it. We’ll stick with Bulgur Wheat Salad instead.
The recipe did spark quite the debate with Jess about the difference between bulgur wheat, farro, freekeh and wheat berries. Turns out they’re all pretty much the same but grown from different varieties of wheat, sometimes in different temperatures and with or without the outer wheat germ. Who knew wheat could be grown and processed in so many ways?!
For this recipe we went with bulgur wheat because it’s super quick to cook. If you use the pasta-style method it only takes 10 minutes to cook. Love me some wheat berries but man do those take forever to cook!
SIMILAR: Cucumber Noodle Salad with Avocado Dill Dressing
When Jess and I were iterating on what recipes to test, my mind could not let go of the idea of a spring grain salad of sorts. I love me some asparagus and fresh english peas. Funny enough, I don’t like frozen peas but I did like this recipe and I’m 90% sure Jess snuck in frozen peas behind my back…so there’s that!
I told Jess to run with it though. She’s kind of the queen of dressings (this avocado herb dressing is a dream!) and knows that I’m all for experimenting with new types of grain – quinoa can be a bit overdone in the wellness space, amIright?
And run with it she did. This Spring Bulgur Wheat Salad with Avocado Herb Dressing will help you celebrate all the new veggies coming into season in the best way possible…by eating them!
HOW TO MAKE BULGUR SALAD
A lot of people have never cooked bulgur wheat so I thought I would walk you through the process.
- You’ll begin by cooking your bulgur as you would quinoa or rice by adding it to a pot of boiling water.
- The bulgar will only cook for about 10 mins (test it to make sure it is done)
- Rather than the bulgar soaking up all of the water, you will strain the wheat as you would pasta using a mesh sieve or fine colander
- Voila! Your bulgur wheat is done
Spring Bulgur Wheat Salad with Avocado Herb Dressing
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup bulgur wheat
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 1 cup english peas (fresh or frozen)
- 1/3 cup shelled pistachios, roughly chopped
- 1/3 cup parmesan cheese, crumbled
Herb Goddess Dressing*:
- 1 ripe avocado (med-large)
- 1 bunch of chives
- 1 bunch of parsley
- Juice of 1.5 lemons
- 4 tbsp greek yogurt
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4–1 cup water
*Dressing makes lots of extra so feel free to cut in half or save the rest for other recipes
Instructions
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Pour in the bulgur wheat and cook for about 10 min. Drain the grain as you would pasta through a sieve.
- While the bulgur wheat is cooking cut the asparagus into pieces that are about ½ inch in size.
- Saute the asparagus with some oil for about 5 mins and then add the peas. Continue to saute the asparagus and peas until they have a nice golden color and are tender. Lightly salt.
- While the veggies are cooking crumble the parmesan into little pieces.
- Combine the bulgur wheat, vegetables, pistachios and parmesan in a bowl.
- Next make the dressing: In a food processor or blender combine the dressing ingredients and blend until smooth, adding water until you get a smooth and pourable consistency.
- Serve the salad with the dressing on the side or drizzled over the top.
Like this bulgur salad recipe? Here are a few other spring favorites:
Orange Radicchio Salad
Arugula Peach and Halloumi Salad
Lemon Herb Zucchini Noodle Salad
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3 Comments
Evie Carter
May 4, 2019 at 4:11 amI’ve never tried or cooked bulgur before so please forgive my naivete. How different is it from quinoa in terms of flavor and texture?
Davida @ The Healthy Maven
May 4, 2019 at 4:18 pmpretty different! bulgur wheat is from the wheat grain whereas quinoa is a type of seed. The texture is somewhat similar but the flavor profile is very different. I find quinoa to be a bit earthier tasting. You could certainly replace the bulgur wheat with quinoa if you preferred. Enjoy!
Annie
May 23, 2019 at 9:27 amHow many servings does the recipe make as-is? If I were going to make this for meal prep lunches, should I double the recipe?