Personally, I think pasta salads can be really boring, but this one is not! This Pasta Garden Salad is loaded with summer's best, most colorful, fresh ingredients!
Our oldest daughter and her husband have a summer place on a lake not far from where we live. Food is second in importance to fun on the water, but not far behind! I love feeding people, if nothing else, for their feedback!
This pasta garden salad is one of those recipes that just came together and turned out well enough to write it all down. The first time I made it, I cooked the pasta while still at home and tossed it with olive oil to keep it separated in a one-gallon plastic ice cream bucket. Yep, we don't get too fancy there.
The bucket of cooked pasta and pretty much all the contents of my crisper drawer went into a cooler. I grabbed a jar of mayonnaise, a squirt bottle of yellow mustard, apple cider vinegar, a little sugar, and my favorite, Lawry's seasoned salt and pepper.
At the last minute, I grabbed the clamshell of grape tomatoes sitting on the counter and headed off to the lake! As you can see when I hastily assembled all the ingredients for a photo so I could remember everything, I forgot to photograph a couple of items. Can you spot them?
Families are so busy in the summer that it's good to have a few tricks up your sleeve when schedules get crazy. Pasta salad is very flexible, and I will share a few tricks I've learned in my 50-some years of cooking!
Pasta salad is one of the best things about summer. It's a great make-ahead side dish that tastes better the next day. You can enjoy a pasta salad like this for several days!
In a perfect world, pasta salad is best made while the pasta is still a little warm. The pasta opens its arms to the marinades or dressings and absorbs all the goodies. The downside is that when you make pasta salad this way, it can taste drier and less flavorful the next day.
The pasta loves to absorb moisture, which can leave the salad looking and tasting dull. It still tastes good; it just doesn't have the pizzazz of the first time around.
The solution is simple: Mix up a little more dressing and add it to the salad. You may need to add a little more salt to make it as delicious as it was on the first day.
Sometimes, there isn't a chunk of time big enough to make pasta salad all at once. Luckily, pasta is super easy to do ahead!
When I worked in food service, I learned to cook pasta, drain it, toss it with a little olive oil to keep it separate, and refrigerate it. There is no need to rinse it! I keep the pasta in a zip-lock bag in the fridge.
This process works great when making pasta salad. You can certainly put together the salad with cold pasta.
It will initially absorb a little less of the flavors, but after chilling in the fridge for a couple of hours, it will taste great. You still may need to add a little dressing the next day because the pasta will keep absorbing moisture.
You can also use this do-ahead trick when you want to eat pasta hot! Just pull some pasta from the fridge, put it in a strainer, plunge it in boiling water for a few minutes, add sauce, and enjoy! Try it when your family eats in shifts or if you want to cook once and eat twice as we often do.
You deserve good kitchen tools! They don't need to be expensive, but the investment will pay off handsomely in the time you save! Everything is easier when you have the right tools.
I've used the same old-school stainless steel potato peeler for over fifteen years, and it still works like a charm. Mine looks like this and came from Pampered Chef.
There are lots of good ones, but in my opinion, the stainless steel ones are the best, and I wash mine in the dishwasher! While you're at it, get a simple stainless steel box grater—it is a workhorse!
Food processors and mini food processors work great, but I love my Pampered Chef chopper for smaller batches of chopped vegetables. It also goes in the dishwasher and doesn't take up much room to store.
Hard-cooked eggs are an essential ingredient in this pasta garden salad because of their creaminess. There are lots of ways to make hard-cooked eggs, but my favorite is the 5-5-5 method using an Instant Pot.
Set the Instant Pot to high-pressure cooking and five minutes of cooking time. Put eggs on the rack or trivet in your Instant Pot and add one cup of water.
When the Instant Pot signals the cooking time is done, set a five-minute timer. This is an important step. Do not quick-release the pressure yet.
THEN, When the five-minute timer sounds, quick-release the remaining pressure and remove the eggs. Finally, for five more minutes, put them in an ice-water bath (or at least the coldest tap water you can run.)
It will take the same amount of water and time to cook as many eggs as possible in a single layer in your Instant Pot. I find having some hard-boiled eggs for snacks and salad toppings handy!
Tap the eggs against the side of the sink to crack the shells, roll the eggs between your hands, and pop the peels off! Peeled or unpeeled, hard-cooked eggs will stay fresh in the fridge for a week, and they're great to keep on hand!
Mash the eggs and add them to the dressing. I have used a potato masher to do this. The egg yolks are so bright and deep yellow because my egg lady Steph has happy chickens that eat fresh greens!
Chop the vegetables into pieces about the same size as your pasta shape so that every forkful has as many ingredients as possible!
Add grated carrot, finely chopped celery and cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and any other firm vegetable you'd like. Fresh sweet peas, green onion, zucchini, broccoli florets—any veggie you want!
Mix the mashed egg with mayonnaise, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.
Pour the dressing over the pasta and vegetables and toss together gently. Refrigerate for two hours or even overnight so all the ingredients have a chance to get to know each other and combine for the best flavor.
You will love this garden pasta salad loaded with fresh veggies in a slightly sweet mayonnaise and mustard dressing.
Make this pasta salad the next time you are feeding a bunch! I know you'll enjoy it! Here are three other recipes that everyone at the lake gave a thumbs-up! Amish Pasta Salad, Broccoli and Cauliflower Salad, and Sweet Corn Salad. What's your favorite summer salad?
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Love, GB (Betty Streff)
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