PASTA SALAD | with Italian salad dressing

hello my friends it's danny and today i am showing you how to make an easy yet beautiful italian pasta salad now this recipe is packed with colorful vegetables and it's super versatile you could really make this work with whatever ingredients you have in your fridge it is perfect for a cookout a barbecue a picnic a day at the beach and most importantly it is great for meal prep so the first thing i like to do is prep all of my veggies starting with two fat cloves of garlic i'm just gonna get the skin off and then crush them with my garlic crusher then i have a 14 ounce can of quartered artichoke hearts which i've drained a half a cup of pitted kalamata olives and i like to cut those right in half then i'm going to need one and a half cups of diced bell peppers now my favorite way to cut a pepper is to slice off the cheeks aka the sides of the pepper and then the bottom then i will cut that into strips come back across the other way and chop it up personally i like to use two different colored peppers for this recipe just because it adds more color and vibrancy to the salad then i have one cup of baby tomatoes that you can either have or quarter depending on their size a half a cup of thinly sliced celery and then half of a red onion finely diced now the easiest way to dice or chop an onion is to remove the stem side of the onion just slice that off then slice it in half lengthwise and peel off this outer papery skin then i just create a checker board with my knife making vertical and horizontal slices from here bring your knife right over the top and come straight down and you my dear friend will have a chopped or diced onion then the final ingredient to prep is some fresh basil now i've got all different sized leaves so i just like to grab them into a pile and kind of roll them together tightly and then chop them up you're going to see that the basil really brightens up this salad it gives it so much brightness and flavor so you definitely don't want to skip it okay so now what i like to do is make the salad dressing and i do this right in the bottom of a nice big bowl so ultimately everything is happening in the same bowl so into my bowl goes a third of a cup of extra virgin olive oil this is when you want to use the good stuff a third cup red wine vinegar our crushed garlic one teaspoon of dijon mustard one teaspoon of dried italian seasoning and then a teaspoon of sea salt and a half a teaspoon of black pepper i'm going to gently whisk this all together and then my pasta is going to get tossed right into the dressing right in this nice big bowl now i'm using a traditional fusilli pasta for this recipe but you could use any type of pasta you like or prefer you could do a bean pasta a lentil pasta a gluten-free pasta they would all work you just want to cook them according to the package instructions so i've got a nice big pot of water i'm going to add a little bit of sea salt turn the heat up to high let everything come up to a boil then i will cook my pasta until al dente and drain it out now what i really love about this pasta salad recipe is that we are pairing our pasta with good healthy fats from our salad dressing and lots of fiber from all of the fresh vegetables and that's going to help to slow down how quickly the pasta breaks down in your body and this is a really great tip to keep in mind whenever you're eating processed flours if you pair them with healthy fats proteins and or lots of fiber they're going to break down more slowly which is going to keep you satiated for a longer period of time then once my pasta has cooled down a little bit so it's still warm i like to toss it with the salad dressing right in that nice big bowl and i'd like to do it like this because when the pasta is still warm it's able to absorb all of the flavors from that salad dressing so each and every bite is like a little party in your mouth then from here we're just going to add all of our toppings and the key is a variety of color and flavor and texture so i have the artichoke hearts our kalamata olives my bell peppers two colors some baby tomatoes celery red onion and then of course our fresh basil now i wanted to keep this recipe plant-based but if you wanted even more flavor and texture you could do some chopped chicken some tuna some salami or even your favorite cheese so really take this recipe as a base blueprint and make it your own and then the final step is just to gently toss everything together this is such a beautiful colorful family-friendly pasta salad that is satisfying on so many different layers flavor texture color delicious in so many ways okay sometimes it's the most simple dishes that are the most delicious as always i'm going to leave a link for you down in the description box below so you can head over to my website cleananddelicious.com and print this recipe out and if you haven't already take a moment to subscribe to the channel and hit that notification bell so you never miss a new recipe thank you so much for being here i'm danny spees and i'll see you back here next time with some more clean and deliciousness cheers you

Channel: Clean & Delicious

Views: 310,840

Keywords: pasta salad, italian salad dressing, italian pasta salad, pasta salad recipe, italian pasta salad recipe, how to make italian pasta salad, how to make italian salad dressing, best pasta salad, classic pasta salad, pasta salad with italian dressing, easy pasta salad, easy italian pasta salad recipe, cold pasta salad, easy recipes for lunch, dani spies, clean and delicious, healthy recipes, healthy pasta salad, homemade italian dressing recipe

Id: fCVHMyfP6wQ

Length: 5min 52sec (352 seconds)

Published: Sat May 07 2022