Anyone who has been to a family cookout, a friend’s barbecue or neighborhood party can attest to the fact that not all pasta salads are created equal. For every deliciously head-turning macaroni mashup, there’s also the sorry, bloated, under-dressed pasta disaster. And you can always tell the salad that is made with pre-cut supermarket veggies and a bottle of Italian dressing.
A good macaroni or pasta salad is a strategic merger of cooked noodles and add-ins. Kitchen-sink pasta salads may be good for cleaning out the fridge, but they rarely satisfy. I recently went web surfing for new recipes and was pleasantly surprised by an abundance of tips to improve macaroni and pasta salads.
With summer parties ahead of us, it’s time to step up our game. Here are some helpful tips and recipes that will make you a pasta salad star.
Amp up seasonings: A good pasta salad begins with well-seasoned pasta. Season the boiling water aggressively, about 4 tablespoons of salt for 4 quarts water. Because flavors can be muted when cold, start with pasta that already is packing more intensity. Additionally, the dressing can be added when the pasta is still slightly warm because warm pasta absorbs flavors more easily. The cooking gurus at thekitchn.com recommend tossing pasta with about two-thirds of the dressing while the pasta is still warm and adding the remainder before serving.
Shape matters: Stick to pasta that can be easily speared with a fork. That means short shapes such as rotini, fusilli, gemelli, orecchiette, cavatappi, shells, penne and good ol’ elbow macaroni. Bon Appetit advises against farfalle (the bow tie pasta’s wide edges will be overcooked by the time the middle is done) and tortellini (fillings aren’t appetizing when cold) and long strands such as spaghetti. Go for shapes that trap the dressing and add-ins.
Fresh isn’t best: Though fresh pasta can improve the experience of hot pasta dishes, it is wrong for pasta salads served cold. Use dried pasta, which holds up well when tossed with dressing and served cold or at room temperature.
Overcook pasta: Al dente is preferred for hot pasta dishes, for sure. But pasta salads benefit from slightly overcooking the pasta. “As the cooked pasta cools, the starch in it goes through a process known as retrogradation, in which the starch molecules reform into a more solid crystalline structure — in essence, it rapidly becomes stale like bread,” explains seriouseats.com, which recommends overcooking pasta about two to three minutes past al dente until very soft. Adding the extra minutes will keep the pasta soft while it cools.
Tame the crunch: Big chunks of raw veggies fight with tender pasta in pasta salads. It’s best to blanch, roast or sauté some of the dominant vegetable add-ins, especially where broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, snow peas and asparagus are concerned (celery and cucumber are the exceptions). Allrecipes.com suggest adding chunky vegetables in the last minute of boiling the pasta and then draining and cooling with the pasta.
To rinse or not: Rinsing pasta under cold water is almost always a no-no. But thekitchn.com, which has done extensive work with pasta salad, recommends rinsing after cooking. It not only stops the cooking process but keeps the pasta loose for salad. When left unrinsed, the starchy coating can make the pasta gummy and clump together. Bon Appetit, however, recommends against rinsing, suggesting to toss cooked pasta with a little olive oil then spreading it in a single layer on a cookie sheet to let it cool completely.
greg.morago@chron.com
June 16, 2021 at 11:53PM
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Here are some helpful tips to improve your pasta salad game - Houston Chronicle
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