Summer Pasta Salad for the Picnics

It's time for the family picnics and you're bound to get an assignment.  Sometimes it's completely out of your control.  Someone else could be handing out the jobs and you could be relegated to drink patrol, chip chaser or paper products. 

But if I have my choice to bring anything I want, I will choose the salad or the dessert.  Now I've got a TON of different desserts on the site already, so let's talk about a nice and easy salad that'll please almost everyone. 

My sister Robyn brought this pasta salad to one of our family dinners and it was alarmingly good.  It's blend of noodles, veggies and a little bit of protein with just a little bit of sourness from the Italian dressing marches a cavalcade of flavors across your tongue.  I'll make a large batch of this salad, divvy it up into a number of bowls and take them to work for lunch for almost a week.

What I really like about the recipe is that it doesn't take hours to make.  With a potato salad, you have to boil the eggs, boil the potatoes, let them all cool, peel them and then add them to the all of the other ingredients.  Three hours later you have a salad that's a ticking salmonella time bomb in direct sunlight on a 100 degree afternoon.  After being on the business end of one of those disasters, which caused my other business end to relegate itself to the restroom for a few hours, let's just say I'm a little anti-potato salad.

This salad... no eggs.  Matter of fact, all of your cooking occurs in one pot.  You can chop up all the veggies and cured meats while you wait for the water to boil.  You cook the noodles and blanche some of the veggies in the last minutes of the boil.  Mix everything together after the noodles are strained, add the dressing and you're done!  In less than 30 minutes, you'll have a unique salad that's light, fresh and veggie-full.

Summer Pasta Salad

Feeds 8-12 as a salad, 4-6 as a main course

1 16 ounce package rotini, farfalle or small shell pasta noodles
1 cup broccoli florettes broken into small pieces
1/2 cup diced cucumber
2/3 cup baby carrots, sliced into very small rounds
1/4 can medium black olives, sliced or 8 ounces of your favorite olives, sliced
1/4 cup finely diced red pepper
4 ounces pepperoni, cubed or sliced small
4 ounces hard salami, sliced into strips or small squares
1 cup Italian dressing or our Italian Vinaigrette

Cook the pasta according to the instructions.  While bringing the water to a boil and cooking the pasta, break the broccoli florettes into small 1/2 inch sprigs.  Rinse and dice the cucumber.  Slice all of the baby carrots to create small carrot rounds or rings.  Slice the olives into small rings.  Dice the pepperoni and the salami.

When the noodles are 2 minutes away from being done, add the broccoli, carrots and pepper into water and allow them to blanche for the remaining time. Strain and rinse the pasta and veggies with cold water to stop the cooking.  Then dump them into a large bowl.  Add the cucumber, olives and meat, then toss for about 30 seconds to mix them well.  Add the Italian dressing and continue to toss for 1 minute, so everything is thoroughly coated.  Place in the fridge and let it chill for an hour if you have it.  If you're running late, you can serve it immediately, but I like the chilled method better.


So next time you have to bring something for the party, make this salad.  Save yourself hours of prep work and receive all sorts of Kudos!