The last and final pasta salad for the week is all Asian. I had to include one of the pasta salads that has flavors from one of our favorite cuisines. We all love Thai food and this Pasta salad has all the flavors of good Thai Peanut noodles minus the cooking part. The vegetables that I have added are what I had at hand. You can add as many different ones or as few as you like and this pasta salad would work either way. The Spicy Thai Peanut Dressing is the highlight of this dish. It is so quick to put together and I used a blender to blend everything. Since we love Asian cuisine, I pretty much have all the sauces in my pantry. I just had to cook the spaghetti and add the rest of the ingredients and mix. The Pasta salad is ready to be served right away, or even better, refrigerate to take for lunch the next day. I love cooking for the blog over the weekend as I get to have some extra help around. I have the taste testers ready and waiting to jump in to taste and give their expert opinion and even better, I get a food photographer/stylist with a fresh set of eyes to help plate and take pictures. Below is my son’s shoot and his picture.
Ingredients and Substitutes
Noodles / Pasta - If you find fresh noodles around, you can use that to make this salad. I used spaghetti for my recipe as I had it in my pantry. You could also use any dry noodles of your choice or even linguine would work. Since it is an Asian salad, stick to the noodle kind of pasta and not any other shape. Vegetables - I used carrot, bell pepper, and spring onions with a generous amount of cilantro. You could also use broccoli and red onions in the recipe. If using broccoli, cook it for a couple of minutes and then add it to the mix. Dressing - I used crunchy peanut butter in the dressing. Any kind of peanut butter would work. Along with it, soy sauce is a must. I always have a large bottle of sweet chili sauce as my boys love it on all their noodles. If you don’t have it, use some brown sugar when blending to add some sweetness. I don’t use a lot of toasted sesame oil as it is pretty strong. If you like the flavor of it, you could add a little more. We really don’t need salt in the dressing as soy sauce has enough salt. We love a little spice in our noodles and hence I used crushed red pepper. If you don’t like much heat reduce the crushed red peppers or use black pepper instead. Sesame seeds - I toasted some sesame seeds to add to the salad for crunch and extra flavor. I used both black and white sesame seeds to give some color to the dish as well.
Procedure to make Asian Pasta Salad
To make the Peanut Dressing
Add all the ingredients mentioned for the sauce in a small blender jar and give it a quick blend until everything is combined. You could mince the garlic finely and also whisk all the ingredients in a bowl. I preferred blending them all together as it is quicker and also gave an even mixture of the dressing.
To make the Salad
Boil plenty of water and add salt to the boiling water. Cook the pasta until al dente and drain it. Run cold water over the pasta to stop the cooking process and drain.
Place the drained pasta in a wide bowl.
Add the grated carrot, chopped bell pepper, cilantro, and scallion to the same bowl.
Pour the dressing over and mix them all together to combine.
In a small pan, dry roast the sesame seeds until you hear a popping noise. I used both black and white sesame for color and flavor.
Add the toasted sesame seeds to the salad and mix.
Serve at room temperature or refrigerate until ready to serve.
More Pasta Salad Recipes
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