Make Ahead Greek Pasta Salad
Make Ahead Greek Pasta Salad
This is a make the day before you serve salad, or at a minimum, prepare in the morning for serving with the evening meal, the flavors need time to blend. I made this on 26 Dec 2017, tasted 6 hours later for dinner, outstanding, very well liked by my Thai wife as well.
Ingredients
For the Salad
- 1-1 1/4 cups dry maccheroni pasta, macaroni, or spiral pasta
- 3 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced, button, white Shimeji, Shiitake is ok
- 15 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup red bell pepper, sliced
- 1/2 cup spring onions, sliced thick
- 1/2 can pitted black olives, halved
- 3/4 cup Pepperoni, cut into strips
- 3/4 cup Feta cheese, crumbled
For the Dressing
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 3/4 teaspoon sugar
Instructions
- Heat a pot of salted water to boiling, add the pasta and cook until tender, drain well.
- While the pasta is cooking, mix together the Dressing ingredients in a good sized mixing bowl.
- After the pasta is well drained and cooled a bit, add it to the dressing along with the rest of the Salad ingredients except the cheese. Toss well to coat everything.
- Now add the cheese and fold that, then cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.
- Serve as a side, or in my opinion, as a main dish as that is what I will probably do.
Notes
I cannot price pepperoni at this time, I used a 150 gram pack of smoked ham for 90 Baht. For the Feta, that is 150 Baht for 275 grams, use half the package (75 Baht), cut the block in half and crumble that for right about a cup. Based on the Feta and smoked ham, for 4 servings, this is about $1.22 per serving.
Variants: 1. In place of pepperoni, use thin sliced smoked ham. 2. Use what you have, like a whole bell pepper instead of cup, or a package of pepperoni or smoked ham, like a cup or so, etc.
Adapted from an internet recipe.
Taste test complete, outstanding! Wonderful flavor, easily a meal by itself. Highly recommended. My Thai wife loved this and asked for it again.
I made this on 26 Dec 2017, have to wait another 6 hours for it to chill and blend the flavors before the first taste test. I show my wife this just before I put it in the fridge, she said wow that looks good. Now I went with the variant of using 1 cup smoked ham. Increased the pasta to about 1 1/3 cups, used Shimeji mushrooms, and the whole red bell pepper. This was my first time using, or even tasting, Feta cheese, I am hooked now on that, that is good cheese, I can see that going into a lot of salads now.