Our Favorite Recipes Featuring Healthy and Delicious Whole Grains

We love farro! It's packed with nutrients and has a nutty flavor and chewy texture, which makes it perfect for risotto-style dishes, soups, stews, and sautés. Our favorite way to enjoy farro is in grain salads like this one. We cheated a little with this recipe and used pre-cooked farro from the grocery store so the dish comes together in 15 minutes. Definitely try it with homemade farro, too.

When you want to prepare a healthier take on a classic beef meatball, this recipe is the one to follow. It uses precooked mixed grains you can pick up at the supermarket; paired with store-bought marinara, this is speedy dinner you enjoy overtop your favorite spaghetti.

Yes, we know quinoa is a seed, not a grain, but it often gets lumped with whole grains. Like other grains, it's quick to cook, has lovely fluffy grains, and is wonderfully healthy (it's protein-rich and boasts a slew of nutrients). We love it in this comforting and nourishing chicken soup.

Here's a plant-based meal you'll want to make on the regular. It's anchored by brown rice and roasted sweet potato, eggplant, and broccoli and finished with a quick tahini-lime dressing and pomegranate arils.

Farro, an ancient grain with a rich, nutty flavor, replaces the usual arborio rice in this glorious golden meal. Another difference? This risotto cooks in the oven—no standing stirring at the stove needed!

This cool take on the Greek salad adds quinoa to the usual delicious mix of feta, olives, tomatoes, cucumber, and fresh herbs for a hearty and healthy dish.

Bulgur is a form of wheat made from cracked, parboiled, and dried wheat berries. Most famously, it's the main ingredient in tabbouleh. Here, it's used for a hearty entrée with shiitake mushrooms and greens.

Savory, sweet, and nutty all at once, this is a salad that can be enjoyed warm or chilled—and is both hearty and seasonally suitable to make during the winter.

This dish is not a pie in the usual pastry sense of the word. Instead, it's a molded quinoa dish with roasted butternut squash that's cooked in a pie plate. We think you'll find that it's as hearty and irresistible in its own way as any dish with one crust or two.

Not the usual spilt-pea soup, this version gets a nutritional boost from the addition of barley and baby spinach.

Leftover quinoa or millet is the base for this delicious alt porridge. The cooked grain is heated in milk (or your favorite alt-milk) with maple syrup and cinnamon, then served topped with sliced banana and crunchy cocoa nibs. 

When you gradually add warm broth to barley, it turns tender and creamy—the same texture that arborio rice gives risotto.

Wholesome bulgur, mild-tasting cod, and saucy summer vegetables come together in this weeknight dinner that uses just one skillet, making clean-up a breeze, too. 

In case you were wondering, millet is the stuff often used in birdseed, but it's too good to leave exclusively to our feathered friends. It's yellow and round and boasts a unique texture when cooked that lands somewhere between fluffy and pleasantly chalky. It makes an excellent pilaf.

It's not just for soup! Barley also makes a wonderful grain salad, as this make-ahead recipe goes to show. There's plenty of flavor thanks to preserved lemon, oil-cured olives, and cilantro. It's perfect for potlucks (no mayo) or desk lunches.

While we used red quinoa for visual punch in this hearty salad, any kind of quinoa would work just as well. The dish is served while the vegetables are still warm from the oven and the quinoa just cooked, but it can also be made ahead giving the flavors of the miso dressing time to infuse.

Packed with fresh herbs, this hearty grain salad is a speedy option as bulgur cooks quickly (some say it's better soaked than cooked). Golden raisins bring sweetness and pomegranate arils a touch of jewel-like color and a pop of bright flavor.