A High-Protein Salad Topping from Barbareño's Kitchen

Name: A High-Protein Salad Topping from Barbareño's Kitchen
Yield: Large batch — great for a crowd, or halve it for home use
Ingredients: 3¾ cups steel cut oats; 1 tbsp + 1 tsp kosher salt; 2 tbsp black sesame seeds; 1 tbsp nigella seeds; 1 tbsp + 1 tsp whole coriander seeds; 1 tbsp whole cumin seeds; 1 tsp cardamom seeds (shucked from pod, without husk); 1½ tsp ground pink pepper; 1 tsp aleppo pepper; 6 tbsp olive oil; ¼ cup + 1 tbsp honey; 1 pack Figure Ate Biltong (any flavor); ¾ cup packed brown sugar; 3½ tbsp water

The Barbareño Menu: Food That Knows Where It Came From

If you're building a Santa Barbara restaurants list of best places to eat, Barbareño belongs at the top. Every dish on the Barbareño menu starts with a question: where did this come from, and who grew it? It's a restaurant built on relationships with local farmers, ranchers, and makers — and it's held Michelin recognition since 2019.

White Buffalo Land Trust — the regenerative agriculture nonprofit behind Figure Ate — has worked with Barbareño for years. They've cooked our lamb at events, use our Persimmon Vinegar on the menu seasonally (their burrata persimmon salad is still one of our favorites), and become the kind of partners we call first when we want someone we trust to prepare a delicious meal.

This time, they got creative with our biltong.

Meet Chef Preston Knox

This recipe comes from Chef Preston Knox, Director of Culinary Operations at Barbareño. Preston started his culinary training in 2014 at Santa Barbara City College's James Dunn Culinary Program and spent a decade at Barbareño, rising from Garde Manger to Chef de Cuisine. He led the kitchen when Barbareño earned its Michelin star in 2019 and they've kept it every year since. You may have caught him on the Food Network's No Recipe Road Trip, or heard about his multi-sensory dining experiment with UCSB studying how environment shapes the way food tastes.

The Dish: A Better Bacon Bit

Preston developed this recipe for a White Buffalo Land Trust dinner where we wanted regenerative beef to speak for itself. While building the menu, he landed on a simple insight: what makes bacon bits work on a salad is that mix of savory depth and satisfying crunch. Biltong, candied and crumbled, could do exactly that, featuring better ingredients.

From there, the biltong “granola” built itself: it starts with oats, honey, and warm spices — coriander, cumin, cardamom, nigella, and a hint of aleppo — baked until golden and nutty, then tossed with brown-sugar candied biltong. The biltong bits were served over locally foraged greens with sweet cherries and a bright pistachio vinaigrette. As salad toppings go, it's in a different category than croutons or dried bacon bits: high protein, genuinely complex, and sturdy enough to hold up under dressing.

What Is Biltong?

Biltong is a South African-style dried beef — cured with vinegar, salt, and spices, then air-dried until it develops a tender texture and deeply savory flavor. It's high in protein, made without fillers or preservatives, and has a richer taste than typical jerky.

Is biltong healthy? As far as protein-forward snacks go, yes — and here it pulls double duty as one of the most interesting salad toppings ideas we've seen.

Savory Biltong Granola