Hello Friday! Let’s be real. Sometimes you just need a little bit of comfort food in your life. And pasta is the king of comfort food everywhere. Is it not? My personal favorite kind of pasta, the kind that helps me clean out the refrigerator and is ready wicked fast (yes, I just said wicked). And if that means throwing together this arugula pasta salad and having my refrigerator cleaned out without a single thing being tossed into the trash. Yes, please, and thank you. Let me put it this way, if you can boil pasta, you can make this pasta salad. The dressing on this pasta salad is such a cinch. And the vinaigrette truly makes the whole dish come together. For the dressing, i’m simply combining a bit of olive oil, a little honey (agave nectar is fine too), garlic, a little Italian seasoning, red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper. Simple as it gets, right folks? But so tangy, sweet, and flavorful. I’m willing to bet you’ve got most of those, if not all the ingredients at home already. It’s no secret that my husband is a big fan of pasta of any kind. And I am a big fan of one pot dinners. Yes, please. This marriage thing is all about compromise, I tell you. To make this pasta salad a little healthier, i’ve swapped out regular pasta for whole wheat, adding in tons of veggies, and keeping the dressing on the lighter side as well. This idea of an arugula pasta salad came to me one hungry afternoon when I just needed something springy with bright greens and a light vinaigrette. Lots of bright fresh arugula, whole wheat pasta that I could sink my teeth into, and cheese — parmesan, please. That and some good old kitchen magic. Call it a fridge clearing pasta if you will! For my salad, I used:
arugula basil cherry tomatoes
But really the options are limitless. I’m planning on serving this arugula salad with grilled shrimp all summer long! Are you with me on that? It’s no secret by now that ANYTHING goes with this pasta. If you’ve got an ingredient in the refrigerator that needs to get eaten NOW, add it in. Here are just a few other suggestions:
roasted veggies (may I suggest zucchini or broccoli) leftover rotisserie chicken caramelized onions sautéed mushrooms sautéed shrimp (um, yes) feta cheese (swap or be super bad and add it in with the parmesan) pine nuts
This super simple arugula pasta salad makes for easy dinners, quick lunches, and is ideal to bring to potlucks. Everyone is going to be asking you for the recipe and you can just stand back and say ‘it’s a little of this and a little of that’. Good pasta salad magic. But trust me, once you take a bite of this bright, spring-ready salad, you’ll know exactly why it’s the perfect pasta recipe for your back pocket.
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The dressing will separate after a few minutes. Simply whisk to bring back together. Alternately, you can add all the dressing ingredients to a jar and just shake to combine.This salad is totally customizable. It’s meant to be a guideline to use up almost anything that’s in the refrigerator. Feel free to toss in leftover diced or rotisserie chicken, sautéed veggies, feta cheese, sliced almonds, or anything else!
