Categories: Salad
Ingredients
- 1 (16-ounce) package pasta, your choice (such as bowtie, corkscrew, penne, or rotini)
- Grape (small) tomatoes, cut in half
- Cooked ham, cubed
- Hard Salami, sliced in strips
- Roasted red peppers, sliced in small strips
- Fresh asparagus
- Fresh snap peas or snow peas, ends trimmed off
- Marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped into smaller pieces
- Green olives, sliced
- Carrots, shredded
- Water chestnuts, sliced
- Havarti cheese, cubed
- Smoked cheddar cheese, cubed
- Salad Dressing (see recipe below)
- 2/4 cups olive oil (or oil of your choice)
- 1/4 white wine vinegar
- Coarse salt and coarsely-ground black pepper to taste
Directions
- Prepare pasta according to package directions. In a colander, rinse the cooked macaroni with cold water, drain briefly so that the macaroni remains moist, and place in a large bowl. Learn How To Cook Pasta Properly.
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In a pan of boiling water, blanch the asparagus and peas for about 2 to 3 minutes or until the peas turn bright green. Remove from heat and transfer to an ice water bath until cool, and then drain in a colander. Chop the asparagus and snap/snow peas into bite-size pieces.
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Toss together the pasta and all the prepared salad ingredient; set aside.
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Prepare the Salad Dressing of your choice (see below). Toss the prepared salad dressing with the pasta salad.
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Always serve pasta salads at room temperature so the flavors will really shine. If you must refrigerate the salad, make sure to return it to room temperature before serving. The dressing usually soaks into the pasta when store. So, if serving later, you may need to add a little extra salad dressing right before serving.
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Serves many.
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Place the olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper in the bowl of your blender. Process until fully combined. Let stand for 30 minutes to let the flavors meld. Whisk together right before serving.