Summer screams for one-dish meals that can be easily carried down to the beach, park or even to a good old fashioned tailgate party.
Try using a whole grain pasta as the base to an easy picnic dish.
There are countless combinations of delicious flavours, textures and colours that can be used to continually reinvent meals. Pasta salad is kid-friendly, doesn’t need to be heated up and can be a meal in itself so you don’t need to think about side dishes. The fresh, simple taste of pasta infused with a bounty of vegetables and a bit of meat or seafood satisfies hunger and feels light so you’ll still be motivated to toss around a disc or take up a game of bocce ball.
Try these flavour combinations or be creative and experiment with alternatives. Load up your pasta salads with veggies so they are less noodle and more veggie, but go ahead and play with the ingredient amounts.
For the dressings, start with a ratio of 3 parts oil, 1 part lemon juice or vinegar and then add more lemon juice or vinegar to taste. Feel free to add a clove of minced garlic to any of these for a bit of bite. Season each of the salads to cater to those you share food with. For the noodles, shorter shapes or tubes work best, but use any pasta you like!
| Use your noodle | 5 Main Ingredients | Dress it from your pantry/fridge |
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| Penne (tubes with ridges) |
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Orecchiette (shaped like little ears) |
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| Cavatappi (corkscrew shaped macaroni) |
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| Farfalle (shaped like bow-ties) |
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Fusilli (triple edged spirals) |
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| Soft chow mein noodles, egg noodles or rice vermicelli |
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Complete your picnic with some fresh cut-up fruit and a few semi-frozen filled re-useable water bottles (to drink and to keep things cool). Don’t forget to bring a blanket big enough for your planned guests and a few unplanned ones that you may pick up along the way.
What’s your signature pasta salad combination? We’d love to hear about your tried and true family recipes.
