Skip to main content

Creamy Veggie Pasta Salad

Creamy Pasta Salad
Lately, I have been cooking Italian couple times a week. Cooking pasta is easy and quick. Pastas are deliciously perfect for busy weeknight dinners. Last night, I made a Creamy Pasta Salad with some of our favorite veggies and everyone was happy.

Ingredients:
Tricolor Vegetable Rotini - 2 cups
Mayonnaise - 1/2 cup
Buttermilk - 1/2 cup
Broccoli Florets - 1 cup
Roma Tomato - 1 medium
Red Onions (finely chopped) - 2 tbsp
Spicy Brown Mustard - 1 tbsp
Herbes de Provence - 1 tsp
Black Pepper - 1/2 tsp
Celery Salt

How to cook Creamy Vegetable Pasta Salad:
  • Heat 4 - 5 cups of water in a pot. When water starts boiling, add bite size broccoli florets and little salt. Stir and let the florets cook for a couple minutes. Drain the water and add the cooked florets in a strainer. Set it aside.
  • Finely chop red onions and medium chop tomato. For some crunch, you can add bell peppers or celery as well.
Veggie Pasta Salad
  • Cook the dry pasta as per the package instructions. I cooked rotini pasta for 11 minutes. 
  • Meanwhile, prepare the creamy dressing. In a big mixing bowl, add mayonnaise, buttermilk, mustard, fresh ground black pepper, herbes de Provence seasoning. Whisk the dressing well.
  • Generally, pasta salads have a 1:1 mayo and sour cream dressing. To reduce the calories, I have used buttermilk instead of sour cream. You could also use yogurt/curd as well. You could use dry Italian herb seasoning instead of herbs de Provence as well.
  • Next, add cooked broccoli florets, diced tomato, chopped onions and cooked pasta. Toss it well. Taste for seasonings and add little celery salt if required. 
  • Refrigerate the salad for 30 - 40 minutes and voila! Your homemade wholesome Creamy Vegetable Pasta Salad is ready to devour.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Indian Dal / Lentils

Lentils, known as Dal are a staple in an Indian diet, especially vegetarian. For me, dal is comfort food. 5 different dal varieties - Toor, Moong, Chana, Masoor and Urad are commonly used in Indian sweet and savory delicacies. You can cook dal with just one kind or a mix of two or more. I generally cook dal with 1:1 Toor and Moong dals. But then, we like Panchmel or Panchratna Dal too, which is made of all five. Most dal recipes have Toor dal as the primary ingredient. It is also known as Toovar or Arhar dal or Split Pigeon Peas . Some of our family favorite dal recipes are Dalitoy (Konkani Dal)  Tadka Dal Among all lentils, moong dal and masoor dal take lesser time to cook. Moong dal is also known as Split Green Gram or Split Mung Bean . Moong dal is also used in making sweet dishes like Mung Dal Kheer  Mung Dal Puranpoli Chana dal is also known as Split Bengal Gram or Split Chickpeas . Chana Dal takes a little more time to cook as compared to toor dal....

Naval Kol Bhaji / Kohlrabi Stir-fry

Green Kohlrabi called as Navalkol in Marathi and Navilkosu in Kannada, belongs to the cabbage family.  My Mom used to make this stir fry very often.  Just like cabbage, this vegetable in available in two colors - green and purple.  I was quite hesitant about the purple one, as I haven't seen that back in India.  Anyway, I picked the green bulbs and Navalkohl Bhaji with Chana Dal was part of our healthy vegetarian meal today.

Ricotta Cheese Pedha / Peda

Once or twice every week, my Dad used to get some treats on his way back home. Somedays it used to Kandi Pedha or Kesar Pedha. This is my attempt of making Indian Mithai at home. I might dare say, I was pretty successful. Touch Wood! Tasted and looked great! If you are a fan of milk sweets, do try this easy home made Kesar Pedha recipe made of Ricotta Cheese and milk powder. Ingredients: Ricotta Cheese (full fat) - 15 oz (about 400 gm) Milk Powder - 3/4 cup Whole Milk - 1/2 cup Sugar - 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp Ghee/Clarified Butter - 1 tbsp Green Cardamom/Elaichi - 2 pods Saffron/Kesar - few strands Pistachios/Pista - 3 How to make Pedha using Ricotta Cheese: Crush cardamom seeds and saffron in a mortar pestle to a fine powder. Finely chop or slice the pistachios or any other nuts of your choice. Heat ghee in a heavy bottom kadhai or pan. Add ricotta cheese and stir continuously. Stir until water from the cheese is evaporated and starts forming a lump. It will take about 15 - ...