
This refreshing pasta salad is sure to be an easy and fulfilling meal on even your busiest days! Pihu Jain / Daily Nexus
As the new year begins, I find myself looking back on my food favorites of 2024. The late-night kimchi fried rice and grilled cheeses were up there, but it was the truckloads of pasta that sustained me through most months. The pink, white, red and green sauces, colorful melanges of veggies and herbs with the most delicious smell still lingers in my kitchen. As I began the new year, I wanted to be more innovative with my recipes, especially with my use of pasta. I rarely make spaghetti, or baked pasta, opting for simple pan sauce cooking instead. To incorporate more leafy greens, which I rarely did with the exception of basil, I decided to try and make a pasta salad without any of Google’s wisdom.
I ended up with the recipe below after a couple trial rounds, experimenting with different supplemental veggies, taking out croutons (normally a staple for me, but too textured for this particular salad) and deciding to keep it more simple than I’m used to. After all, less really can be more, and fewer ingredients are often easier to pair and digest than a complex combination. I found this recipe to be an easy, healthy fix for when I’m feeling too lazy to cook up an entire pasta dish but also just guilty enough that ordering another $20 Chili’s burger is not an option. The key feature of this recipe is how customizable it is: you can use any type of greens, any dressing and any pasta shape you like. It’s all up to you to experiment and figure out what works best!
Pasta Salad
Yield: 2-3 servings
Duration: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 bag of leafy greens (Trader Joe’s has a great selection of these, at an affordable price too!)
- 16 ounces pasta (any type will do, just make sure to prepare it al dente)
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- Parmesan cheese (to garnish)
- Dressing of your choice
Instructions:
- Prepare pasta according to package directions (keep it as al dente as possible).
- While pasta is cooking, wash and mix together the greens, sliced cherry tomatoes, and chopped walnuts.
- When the pasta is done, strain and add to the salad.
- Add your dressing of choice and give the salad a good mix.
- Top with parmesan cheese and enjoy!
A few notes from the chef:
When cooking the pasta, make sure to add a generous amount of salt to the water in order for the flavor to really come out. Sometimes, I also add a raw clove of garlic into the boiling water for additional flavor. Additionally, I would recommend stocking up on 1-2 bags of leafy greens a week, due to how quickly they expire, to ensure that you are getting at least a couple good salads a week.
I personally think this recipe cannot do without walnuts, but if you prefer a different nut, give it a try and see how it goes. I’ve seen people often use pine nuts and or almonds as popular alternatives to walnuts in their salads. Whatever version you try, I hope that this pasta salad can become a staple for you in the new year.