PASTA SALAD 3 WAYS (Literally The Best Pasta Salads I've Ever Had)

Hey what's up? Pasta

salad

is not highly respected either as a

pasta

or as a

salad

and that is nonsense, of course, with a little care anyone can prepare a

pasta

salad with world class flavor, so today I will show you how to be very good. When making pasta salad, we're going to make three different types, all very well tested and taste great, so to cook up some pasta for this salad, I have my three-quart saucepan and I'm going to measure in it. In my opinion, 2000 grams or about 2 quarts of water and 45 grams of salt. The first step to a great pasta salad requires that the pasta itself be well seasoned with salt and I found that 2.25 salt to water is just the right ratio now.

I'm going to put this pot on the boil and the first pasta salad I'm making is the classic creamy macaroni salad. In my opinion, it was not easy to understand; In my opinion, it is the most abused and least understood pasta salad, and after three attempts, I am finally very happy with the result once the water is fully boiling, add 225 grams or half a pound of elbow macaroni and I'm going to set a timer for 11 minutes, which is three minutes longer than the package directions say and that's because in my testing, almost overcooked pasta retains dressing and sauces much better than al dente After 11 minutes, I'm going to come back and give this macaroni a try and at this point it should be the opposite of al dente, very undente, basically, so cook it. to the point where it is very tender but does not fall apart.

Now I'm going to drain this pasta, but first I'll reserve a few tablespoons of pasta water to help me thin out the dressing for this salad in just a minute once I make the pasta. It is well drained, I will apply it with 25 grams of distilled white vinegar and a little olive oil. I'm going to do this with all three

salads

in this video, the vinegar provides the acidity we need to sustain these

salads

. balance and that little bit of oil helps the noodles stay slippery without causing the noodles to clump together and result in an unprofessional, crumbly, crumbly pasta salad.

Next, I'll put the noodles in a mixing bowl to cool them. I want them to come back to room temperature before the toppings are added and 20 minutes later these macaroni have cooled and now in this bowl goes 30 grams of finely chopped shallots which I rinsed with cold water after cutting them and smaller is better . these shallots, by the way, and if you don't have shallots, try red onion, that will work just as well, then in 60 grams of finely chopped celery, chop them again as small as you can. I really like the texture of raw celery, but also. a big piece and suddenly it's tough and stringy, so cut it small at the back, that includes 30 grams of thinly sliced ​​chives 100 grams of frozen peas yes, this is totally more hoos, but at the end of the day it's essential for a salad of quality macaroni next is 100 grams of chopped crispy bacon to get this crispy, I placed three quarters of a pound of thinly sliced ​​bacon on a rack and then on a sheet pan and then loaded it into a 350°F or 176° oven C to melt that fat and fry it. for about 30 minutes, once the bacon is cooked, dark and crispy like that, it's ready to come out and cool.

If we did our job right, the bacon should be stiff and crispy like this, it looks perfect from there, I'm going to run. I ran a knife through it to cut it into little pieces of bacon and it looks great and tastes great. 100 grams of that goes into the salad now for the salad dressing, I made this little miracle ranch dressing hybrid situation that is super creamy and tangy and would honestly go good on top of almost any food, so to make it a high sided container you need one large egg 50 grams of sour cream 25 grams of Dijon mustard 15 grams of sugar 10 grams of lemon juice 5 grams of worcestershire and 5 grams of salt go into my immersion blender and now I'm going to spin this base, oh yeah, and half a clove of garlic goes in there too.

I forgot about that, now

ever

ything will be rotated to match and I'll go from there. to add 300 grams of neutral oil, I am using light colored olive oil, in this case the extra virgin is not for mayonnaise, it becomes too bitter once the oil has been completely poured and

ever

ything is turned until it has a light emulsion and a creamy appearance. Well, back to the salad once we have a few healthy spoonfuls of that sauce in the bowl. Now I'm going to add a splash of water to the pasta. The dressing here is quite thick and the water helps distribute it evenly throughout the pasta salad. it helps the noodles absorb more of the dressing and I want to be clear that this salad needs to have a lot of dressing but we don't want it swimming in lightly sweetened mayonnaise, essentially that's no one's dream so tasting as you go will be

best

. way to know when we're in that sweet spot personally, I think this needs a little more sauce.

I'm probably closer to 300 grams of this sauce in the bowl total, that's most of what we did now, I'm going to add five grams of chopped fresh dill, then about 20 to 30 pinches of black pepper and then I'm going to add a a little more salt to make everything pop, the last bit will be up to you, but keep in mind that we are serving the salad at a colder temperature and cold food needs more salt to taste good, I'm going to give this salad one more shake to combine it and then, to show that this salad is worthy of your respect, I'm going to serve it on a plate as if it were a fancy pasta or a proper restaurant-style salad, we'll garnish it with a little more fresh dill, a little pepper ground black pepper and a little extra virgin olive oil.

This is a macaroni salad for adults. I can eat it by the pool eat it by the grill whatever you want let's try this it's familiar elevated it's creamy it's a little salty lots of interesting textures I didn't think you could make a creamy pasta salad it's never been something I've liked, It's al

ways

been a little chubby, a little gross, it tastes great. The next pasta salad to start over includes 2000 grams of water and 45 grams of salt that boils and, as the temperature rises, I think. This is a good time to thank Butcherbox for sponsoring this video.

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You only get exactly what you like Delivery is free You can cancel at any time and there will be free lobsters and ribs at the checkout. Did I mention that all the grass-fed meat I've eaten this past week from Butcherbox has been super delicious anyway and I want to thank you for sponsoring this video. Next up is pesto pasta salad and the perfect shape for that is a shell. The ridges on the outside combined with the cavernous interior will hold a ton of chunky, rustic pesto. An added bonus is that they're the same size as the stuff we're going to mix together as a garnish, but we'll talk about that later, once the water is about to boil, 225 grams of these shells go and then I'll cook them for 12 minutes again, that's about three minutes with the proper cooking time on the box, we want soft pasta but not mushy pasta.

After 12 minutes, the pasta will be drained and then 25 grams of distilled white vinegar and an extra splash will be added. virgin olive oil as before, which is stirred and then turned into a medium bowl to mix and cool. I like to blow on this just a little to start the cooling. By the way, very, very hot pasta will tend to last quite a long time. a little bit and then we run the risk of it becoming mushy after about 20 minutes the shells are cooled and ready to be turned into pasta salad first goes in my pesto 300 grams is a great place to start.

I'm very liberal with these things when it comes to pasta salad and to make this pesto in a food processor you need 100 grams of pine nuts lightly toasted and then cooled. Any nut will work here, especially walnuts, those are a good choice because they are soft like pine nuts and are very cheap. It's 100 grams of basil, the sweeter and greener, the better. Here, 20 grams of chopped parsley without stems and then 30 grams of shallot. I have chopped and rinsed them like we did for the first pasta salad because they will break down faster in the food. processor and then behind it are 100 grams of grated Parmesan cheese, then there are 225 grams of cold extra virgin olive oil.

It's been in the refrigerator for about 25 minutes. This cooler oil helps keep this pesto green as the food processor tends to heat things up through friction. while spinning and finally five grams of salt and 30 grams of lemon juice, the lid is put on and I'm going to spin this at high speed for 20 to 30 seconds or just until everything is well crumbled, here we go, this is not the Sin It's certainly the most traditional pesto ever made, but it's a perfect dressing for a cold noodle salad and it's also super easy to make. I keep it in the refrigerator quite often, eating chicken or salmon during the week.

I'm going to start adding the pasta to the pesto together. First, before adding any garnish, the things I'm about to mix are quite soft and fragile and continuous folding would break them once everything is well coated and bright green, goes 200 grams of mozzarella pearls broken down the half and 200 grams of half a cherry. tomatoes, these are golden tomatoes from my garden and they are probably the easiest

best

tasting tomatoes on earth to grow and a fun trick to cut a lot of these little bbs in half quickly is to use deli container lids, I will put a handful down on the bottom lid with a second lid and then use a serrated knife to close them all in half.

You can probably make 15 to 20 tomatoes at a time this way and it's very quick once we make the tomatoes, we're going to throw in a hefty pinch of Parmesan cheese and then, using a paddle style utensil, we're going to gently fold everything in and looks very good. Pesto pasta salad is a really fun variation on the theme and I think this particular style blurs that line between pasta dish and Proper salad to finish this off, we're going to put a little more pesto on top and then some grated parmesan and Now all that's left to do is try it.

This is a good tasting pasta salad, it's salty, round and very herbaceous for all that. basil, pine nuts add a fun mystery, I never splurge on them so that's disgusting, just a totally professional pasta salad guys, and if you were twisting my arm by making me grate this on the fly I'd say 9.7 out of 10. The next pasta salad here we go next is the mommy style or Italian style pasta salad I guess you could call it, it's the kind that comes from the grocery store checkout in the suburbs where I grew up so this time I started with the pasta again with rotini.

It's going to go into that 2000 grams of water with 45 grams of salt like before and we're going to cook this three minutes following the instructions on the package and then we're going to strain 25 grams of vinegar into a splash of olive oil and then I'm going to stir it to combine it and start cooling it 20 minutes later, we have noodles that are ready for the party, so in the bowl goes 150 grams of Bee Man's Classic Italian Dressing and to turn it into a high-sided container, goes 25 grams of red wine vinegar 45 grams white steel vinegar 20 grams rinsed red onion 1 clove garlic 15 grams red pepper 25 grams grainy mustard Dijon mustard will also work 15 grams sugar 5 grams salt and a quarter teaspoon each oregano, basil , black pepper and chili flakes, the immersion blender is placed on the base, spun and then I'm going to slowly pour in 200 grams of neutral oil again.

I'm using light colored olive oil here and I want to mention that this dressing is going to seem a little tart, but that's because it's designed to be paired with a lot of Parmesan cheese and this pasta will need that tartness. Behind that dressing was 65 grams of fresh mozzarella cut into small cubes. Feel free to add cheddar or colby jack cheese cubes. Instead of that saying, God knows your mom or your grandma is thereoutside adding bright yellow cheddar cheese to the salad. Next are 100 grams of medium large black olives, 50 grams of sliced ​​Chinese pepper, and 100 grams of sliced ​​sun-dried tomatoes filled with oil.

The sun-dried products in my supermarket are actually super dry, so I have to rehydrate them in water for about three hours, then I will drain the water and cover it with neutral oil. These will stay good in the refrigerator basically forever. super delicious and a great side dish for most meals. I'm going to add them and then go 60 grams of red pepper cut into small cubes, behind those 60 grams of sliced ​​genoa salami or sopra sata and 75 grams of grated parmesan cheese that we want. There's a lot of cheese in there, but I'm going to save a little bit for later, after we've mixed this together.

Now I'm going to fold everything in and you'll notice that I used the toppings a lot here and that's because For me, there should be almost a one to one ratio between pasta and bits of stuff. Plus, all of this has to be heavily dressed with dressing and Parmesan cheese and the only way to know if we're there is to give things away. a taste personally I think This needs a little more dressing, a little more parmesan and a touch of salt. The last mile of saltiness will be up to you, so be sure to taste this often, it can really make the difference between a lukewarm paste. that people don't play in a loud pasta cell that people text you about after the party praising your greatness when everything is salty, cheesy and oily, it's time to give this cell that fancy dish treatment really respect it and present it in the best way. possible light, but honestly, whether this is thrown thoughtlessly into a Tupperware container or served in a Creighton 75 keg platter, these things will have some gravitas at any party, these three salads really need to be on your barbecue list . sides to impress your friends this summer and I really hope I have convinced you.

Pasta salad, when made with care, is actually a really fun treat, so here's to plenty more bowls of the cold soft stuff this summer. Let's eat this, so.