Whatever You Like Pasta Salad
You KNOW I’m singing, “You can have whatever you liiiike,” as I write this. This pasta salad can have whatever you like in it, for real. I made this up as I went along. I made this on a Wednesday night and put the mix-and-match method to use. I looked at what ingredients I hadn’t used yet and what I still had leftover. I stocked up on more brown rice pasta, so I knew I wanted that to be the base. There were two zucchinis patiently waiting in the crisper along with wild arugula. Thus, the foundation of a pasta salad was born.
I also bought more green olives this week, plus we had an unopened package of salami sitting in the fridge. I had even more chickpeas awaiting their time to shine as well. For the dressing, I wanted to match the Italian vibe of the ingredients I had on hand. I wanted it to be light and refreshing, so the dressing ended up being very simple and straightforward.
You could take your pasta salad whichever direction you want. Whatever flavor profile your preference is, build around that. I could easily see this being a Greek pasta salad—toss in feta, cucumber, roasted red bell pepper, arugula, kalamata olives, and you’re set. The point is, the pasta salad has an element from each of the mix-and-match categories: carb, vegetable, protein, fat, and plenty of accessories.
Ingredients
1 box brown rice pasta
2 zucchinis, halved and sliced,
1/2 package sliced salami, sliced into 1/4-inch slivers
1/2 can chickpeas, rinsed and drains
1/2-1 C olives, dried and halved
dressing: 1/2 C avocado oil, 1/2 C red wine vinegar, Italian herb mix to taste, salt and pepper to taste
How To
in a large pot, bring water to a boil; in a medium pot, bring water to a boil
while waiting for water to boil, prepare the zucchini and drain and rinse chickpeas
when water is boiling, put brown rice pasta in large pot and prepare per directions
when water is boiling, put zucchini in medium pot for 3-5 minutes
meanwhile, slice salami, halve olives, and prep dressing
drain zucchini when cooked to preferred tenderness
drain pasta when prepared and rinse with cold water
when the noodles are cold, combine noodles, zucchini, chickpeas, salami, olives and dressing in large mixing bowl; gently add in arugula last
serve
This produced enough for both Zach and myself to have dinner on Wednesday night and Thursday night. Major success!
Ciao for now,
Kailey