When I haven't got time, the big batch easy pasta salad I make. Everyone always tells you why it tasted so good. So I'll let you in on my secrets! (No bottled dressing either.)
My big, easy pasta salad
Newsflash! You don't need a million add-ins to make a good great pasta salad. No baby bocconcini required, no need to buy several bunches of herbs and snip out a teeny amount of each use (a teeny amount) and you don't need much time.
To make this salad all you need to do is to toss in hot fresh pasta iced in a simple, tangy, Dijon vinegar dressing and let sit to cool. You will find yourself shocked to what flavour the pasta takes up! That means your pasta salad is already terrific before we've even started working with any ingredients. It will be even better too whatever you toss!
Pasta salad tips galore!
More pasta salad tips … also today. It says a lot about me that I have so many thoughts about a damn pasta salad 😂
- Soft pasta – Cooked pasta that is too soft. It cools down hard, pasta does, and it gets harder in the fridge. We hate rock hard pasta salad.
- Honey – To make the vinegar less sharp and add the honey to the dressing so we can use less oil. I guess I just think pasta salads shouldn't be swimming in oil. I even lighten the mayo dressing on my macaroni salad with a lot of yogurt.
- Ingredient combination streamlined – The pick of all the add ins I can drop into a pasta salad to get all the flavour and texture I want with the minimum number of ingredients possible. As such, it's also important to stay well overnight! My picks: pops (to find the best, seedy juicy ones, try many varieties, but don't take them to mausoleum level), slippery crunch from finely sliced cucumber, briney spark (olives), a treat (feta), and a finishing touch (basil, or any of the suggestions in the recipe notes).
Wing it, use what you've got, use what you love. Of course. Pasta salads are so versatile – such beauty!
What you'll need for this pasta salad
1. THE PASTA
This pasta is shortish and medium pasta, any pasta shape will work here but I think pasta shapes with nooks and crannies for the little chopped up bits of olives and feta to get stuck in are especially good. Established thought – shells, orecchiette, twirls and bow ties (farfalle). But then again, I chose bow ties because – fun!
2. PASTA SALAD ADD-INS
This is what I put in to the pasta salad (see above for why).
- Cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes – Or chop large tomatoes.
- Kalamata olives roughly chopped. This pasta salad gets brought a little briny goodness. This is a great shortcut, it gives salt, tang and sharp freshness so I don't feel the need to add some oniony twist like in this recipe, one less ingredient to chop. The olives are natural for addition to a pasta salad as long as you like them, I like to roughly chop them so it spreads easier throughout the pasta salad. Less olives… with higher impact!
💡TIP: If you live in the UK you probably think black olives are tastier then kalamata olives but I promise you they really aren't as I am sure they are cheaper for a reason!!
I don't have a preference on how thin the slices of cucmber are as long as they're one with the pasta, not as big and flavourless in your mouth when you bite into them as they're usually in large chunks. OK, these are the kinds of things I ask myself — Cooking Nerd Alert!🫣
A general rule in my life is that every salad – besides plain side salads – should have some sort of "treat" in it: nuts, or crisped panko, or a mountain of finely grated parmesan. Today's pasta salad features Feta, playing that role.
💡TIP: Feta is not all the same! Greek feta, labelled "PDO" ("Protected Designation of Origin"), is a few steps up from the economic versions found at the grocery store. Do it once, and you're never the same again.
Or another finishing touch – I like to add a finishing touch in this case that takes this pasta salad over from straight to get out of the house. Basil is available and cheap enough much of the year around here in Australia. However, if I can't get it (or won't pay the price for it), here are other things I use instead which plays the same role:
- Another fresh herb: Parsley or parsley + mint (second choice), or dill (first choice).
- Toasted pine nuts: I find it suits me to roughly chop the half to get the bits out throughout really.
- Dried oregano: To give it an extra hit of flavour I add this into my dressing. Dried oregano is a pantry staple, this is my last resort, fall back. I totally get away with telling people its a Greek Pasta Salad.
3. THE DIJON-CIDER VINEGAR DRESSING
This dressing is so simple (and easy) that I only make it with pantry staples so I can make this pasta salad any day without having to go to the store. Italian herbs (customisable) get a great hit of flavour, plump garlic cloves and a dash of Dijon mustard.
Heads up: Hence, the dressing is sharp and intense of itself. It has to be but it gets tossed through a lot, so it gets really diluted and we have the perfect amount of flavour in every bite.
You don't need to use an extra virgin one for this pasta salad the way I sometimes suggest for salad dressings. Just remember to use extra virgin olive oil, as regular olive oil has less flavour.
My go to vinegar for dressings – Apple cider vinegar. Mild flavour nice but not too sharp and very economical indeed.
This thickens the dressing a bit and helps it coat the pasta and veggies better also — and a little flavour. It is not an overpowering taste, it is a background taste.
Vinegar – Just 2 teaspoons tames the vinegar's sharpness enough for us to make something far less oily. This recipe uses 1/3 cup vinegar with 1/2 cup oil (2: Which has the right amount of oil for my taste (3 ratio). But it was a little sharp and a easy way to dial that down without adding more oil is with a hit of something sweet — like honey (the exact cut of oil is a personal taste).
In contrast, for typical western salad dressings, 1/3 cup vinegar would usually call for 1 cup of oil (1 : I hope other people haven't tried this pasta salad out on only one of the more rational ingredients because I can't taste the other two for the oil it has — a ratio of (3), which means this pasta salad is far too oily for my taste.
Italian herb mix – a standard store bought spice mix of herbs and spices which saves me having to pry open 7 different jars to add to a dish. Alternatively you could use Herbs de Provence mix, or dried oregano, or finely chopped fresh herbs (my first thought is dill).
2 garlic cloves – The garlic smell of this garlic will be in the air over a little hot spaghetti.
The feta and olives will give us some salt, so this whole huge batch only needs 3/4 teaspoon of salt and some salt and pepper.
Big Easy Pasta Salad How To make it
If you've got decent chops you can chop the add ins while the pasta is cooking. So really what that means is it's only about 15 minutes of active cooking / prep for this amount of food, very efficient! (I easily fed 5 to 6 as a meal, and had many more at a buffet spread at a gathering).
Step 1
Shake the Dressing ingredients in a jar.
Step 2
There's a reason to be overcooking the pasta!!! So we don't want to cook the pasta until it's al dente, we want to cook the pasta until it is over al dente and so soft that nothing else is going to make it even firmer when it cools down or more firmer when it is refrigerated. Nobody desires rock hard pasta in their pasta salad!!!
Then cook the pasta well past the point it would be on the packet; i.e. the pasta would be very, very soft, about 2 to 3 minutes past the time indicated on the packet, which would be very, very unpleasant, and not at all cutting for a pasta dish that should be served hot. Once you've dressed your pasta salad and given it time to rest in the refrigerator to cool until room temperature or overnight in the fridge, your overly soft pasta is the perfect texture on the cold side!
Step 3
Chicken absorption – Place the hot pasta into a large bowl (big enough to toss the pasta salad with the vegetables added). Toss well with half the Dressing, then pour over rest.
Leave the pasta to soak up the flavour of the Dressing then cool until it's down to room temperature (around 40 mins). If you remember toss once or twice.
Step 4
Add and toss – Tomato, cucumber, feta, and olives. Toss well over remaining Dressing. Some feta crumbling – some are chunks, some are crumbed is good.
Step 5
Tear the basil leaves roughly with your hands then toss through basil last – last.
Step 6
Serve! Place the pasta salad into a very large serving bowl. Then dig in!
