Macheesmo

This post is sponsored by Tabasco® and is the fourth of five dishes in the Tabasco 10 Ingredient Challenge. The views and opinions in the post are my own.

If there’s one dish that I think everyone should try out of the five recipes I made for the 10 Ingredient Challenge, I think I would encourage everyone to try this Escarole Barley Salad. It’s probably the easiest of any of the recipes, plus it has some amazing flavors going on.

I don’t use escarole very much so I was surprised how much flavor it has. It has so much more flavor then other lettuces or greens. It has kind of a sharp bite to it that pairs perfectly with the barley and creamy cheese.

I wish I could say that I shared this Escarole Barley Salad with Betsy, but the truth is that I hoarded it and ate it all by myself in two days.

Escarole Barley Toss

by Nick

Serves:

Serves 4-6

Prep Time:

15 mins

Total Time:

1 hr

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Escarole Barley Salad is a healthy lunch barley salad with lots of fresh escarole, Asiago cheese, and then finished with a delicious spicy dressing.

Ingredients

1 cup dried barley

2 cups slivered escarole

1/4 red onion, sliced thin

1/2 cup cubed Asiago cheese

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon Tabasco hot sauce

Salt and pepper

Instructions

1) Cook barley according to package. Let cool slightly and stir in oil and Tabasco.

2) Sliver escarole and onions and cube cheese into tiny cubes at 1/4-inch or smaller.

3) Stir veggies and cheese into the barley and season with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately or chill and serve cold.

Escarole Barley Salad

The Hardest Part

I’ll be completely honest. The hardest part of this Escarole Barley Salad recipe is just waiting for the barley to cook! It takes about fifty minutes which will give you more than enough time to prep the other few ingredients and also watch an episode of The Walking Dead or whatever.

When the barley is nice and tender, drain it and then stir in the olive oil and Tabasco. The barley will soak up all that delicious hot sauce flavor.

Besides the barley, you’ll just need about 1/4 red onion, a small head of escarole, and some Asiago cheese.

Be sure to take some time dicing all of these ingredients. They all have strong flavors so take your time slicing and dicing.

The cheese is particularly flavorful so spend some time dicing it into small cubes. I tried to get mine in about 1/8-inch cubes.

Stir this all together in a large bowl and season the whole thing with salt and pepper.

I tried to get a good shot of a spoonful of this Escarole Barley Salad. It’s so awesome. The escarole and red onions are crunchy, the cheese is creamy and salty, and the barley is spicy thanks to the hot sauce dressing.

Grain salads don’t get much better than this in my opinion.

Like I said… if you are bookmarking any of the five recipes I made for this challenge, do this Escarole Barley Salad. It’s definitely the most bang for your buck and fairly straightforward to make!