There’s no better feeling than tucking into a bowl of steaming pasta, but it doesn’t only have to be served warm. In fact, there’s so much you can do with pasta, and while it might be tempting to simply add a sauce and call it a day, you can easily make it more exciting by experimenting with different ingredients, especially in a salad.
Pasta salads are also a great way to prepare meals ahead of the week, and can be whipped together in as little as 20 minutes. A pasta salad is also a great way to make the dish in summer, making for a tasty and refreshing meal on a warm afternoon or evening. While you can experiment with toppings, Mary Berry’s delicious recipe uses broccoli, bacon and tomatoes for a filling meal.
There’s plenty of variety to the dish too, whether sticking to a classic olive oil and vinegar dressing, or adding a splash of pickle juice for a kick, it can even be enjoyed with a simple squeeze of lemon.
However you prefer to prepare a pasta salad, you might notice one thing is missing, and it’s lacking flavour. Even if you’re adding a tasty homemade dressing, a pasta salad can quickly become unenjoyable if it’s tasteless.
When prepared properly, pasta salads are ideal for storing in the fridge for a few days, and the flavour should continue to develop while it’s kept in there.
While pasta salads can be packed with flavour and topped with a bunch of ingredients, they can also risk being dry or crumbly, and it’s likely because you’re missing this one step that makes all the difference.
Speaking to Simply Recipes, registered dietitian Amy Goodson revealed that the crucial difference between a dry and delicious pasta salad lies in when you add the dressing.
Although pasta salad is best enjoyed once cool, this doesn’t mean you should wait until then to add the dressing, and this could actually risk the salad losing out on flavour. Instead, the dietician advised adding your dressing while the pasta is still warm.
“Warm pasta absorbs the flavours of the dressing more effectively than cold pasta, helping the seasonings penetrate and coat each bite, resulting in a more flavourful dish,” she told Simply Recipes.
Once you’ve added the dressing, you can go ahead and add the rest of your ingredients, whether it’s some tuna, tomatoes and red onions, or mixed vegetables and mozzarella, and then refrigerate it.
Allowing the warm pasta to absorb the dressing, this will continue to develop as it’s stored in the fridge, meaning you can make it ahead of time for guests, or simply as a weekday lunch.
