Tips for the best, easiest pasta salad
You know what we find disgusting? Those soggy pasta salads with rancid mayonnaise and boring pieces of wet tomato. Give us a fresh, generously filled pasta salad with a firm bite, packed with ingredients you probably already have in the pantry. With these tips, you’ll always make the tastiest pasta salad from now on.
The kind of pasta salad where you throw in your best leftovers (from roasted turkey to half a fennel bulb in my case), because you can really put in whatever you like. I’m sharing my recipe here, but by all means replace anything you don’t like or have with something that makes it your pasta salad. Vegetarian? Chickpeas and salted chopped almonds instead of the turkey and bacon, for example. Upgrade from feta and mozzarella? Gruyère and/or burrata. Raw bell pepper not your thing? Go for grilled vegetables from a jar instead. Almost anything goes, so have fun!
With these basic tips, you’ll make the best, easiest pasta salad
Proportions
I’m using 250 grams of pasta for four people as my starting point. Alongside that, you want roughly twice that weight in other ingredients. The pasta naturally expands once cooked, and you don’t want a stingy little meal where you have to search for the tasty bits. I therefore have about 175 ml of dressing or vinaigrette ready, which I add and mix into the salad in stages.
Onion or not
I’m not a big fan of raw onion (except spring onion), so I don’t use raw red onion in the salad either, even though it looks nice. What I do like is a chopped shallot or red onion mixed into the vinaigrette. The acidity softens the onion and makes it milder.
Same size
More or less, that is—I don’t keep a tape measure on the chopping board. That would also defeat the whole purpose of such an ultimately easy meal. But you do want to be able to eat it with just a fork, bowl in hand in the sun or on your lap, so make sure everything is bite size. This is also why you choose a ‘short’ pasta such as fusilli or farfalle.
Cold shower
There are quite a few pasta rules, as you’ll know by now if you follow us, because we just can’t stop talking about them. But when making pasta salad, we make the exception that you are allowed to rinse the pasta under cold water. You want to stop the cooking process because hot pasta would absorb too much dressing, and you can’t simply leave it to cool on its own for a long time because the starch would make it start sticking together. So go ahead—give it a quick rinse in a colander under the ice-cold tap.
Mix and rest
Try not to dive into that bowl immediately, but leave it to chill for a little while so all the flavours can infuse. It’s also ideal as a leftover lunch tomorrow!
Recipe for pasta salad
Hardly a recipe worth calling one because it’s so incredibly easy:
- Cook 250 grams of pasta until tender according to the package instructions; meanwhile, make a quick vinaigrette, then rinse the pasta under cold water.
- Drain thoroughly in a colander.
- Chop or shave some raw vegetables; in this case, spinach, fennel, bell pepper and spring onion.
- In a large bowl, mix the vegetables with the pasta and a few tablespoons of the vinaigrette.
- Cut the other additions into roughly equal-sized pieces.
- (Yes, this turkey breast still needed to be cut into small pieces, and the pepper into rings.)
- I had kept the ingredients separate because of the children’s mysterious aversion to feta and red chilli…
- We also had mozzarella, crispy bacon, parsley, and that turkey breast, of course.
- Mix into the rest of the salad and toss again with enough dressing to taste.
- (We adults sprinkled the feta and pepper over our salad at the very end.)
- What I want to add next time, once I’ve been to the supermarket: Kalamata olives, large capers, tuna from Fish Tales and boiled eggs. But you do you!
So there you have it: with a little preparatory chopping, you’re actually done in no time. Enjoy!
Also read:
- How to make pasta salad that isn’t disgusting
- How to have a socially distanced picnic!
- Sangiovese is the ideal wine for pizza, lasagne and Bolognese
