Name: Tortellini Pasta Salad
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 8 min
Yield: 4 main dish serves or 8-10 side dish servings
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons red wine, white wine, or sherry vinegar; 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/4 tablespoon ground black pepper; 9-10 ounces refrigerated cheese tortellini, cooked according to package directions (one regular sized package or 1/2 of a large package); 1/2 cup julienned or diced salami; 1/2 cup julienned or diced pepperoni; 2 canned artichoke hearts, drained and chopped; 1/4 cup kalamata olives, diced; 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, julienned or diced; 4 ounces mozzarella pearls, diced bocconcini, or diced fresh mozzarella; 1/4 cup julienned fresh basil; salt and pepper, to taste

Tortellini Pasta Salad

June 15, 2018

What’s better than cheesy tortellini with fresh antipasto ingredients? These tortellini pasta salad has all of those components in one bowl. It’s perfect as a main dish or as a side to serve at your next picnic or cookout!

Pasta salad used to be one of those foods that I just did not like. I honestly don’t know what it was about them, unless it was the fact that to me, pasta was something that should be served hot. Also, my mom really never made pasta salad so most of my experience with pasta salad was creamy pasta salads on salad bars that had so much mayo that you could not distinguish their individual ingredients.

As an adult, I’ve discovered a love for pasta salads, though. It could be the fact that they are ridiculously easy to make. It could also be the fact that they are ridiculously easy to serve. I mean, what’s not to love about a cold salad that you just grab from the fridge and dish from the bowl?

Make It How You Want It

The other clear advantage to pasta salads is their adaptability. The pasta salads of my youth were mostly “macaroni salads” (including my grandmother’s macaroni salad, which I honestly do not remember her making but it is delicious). However, pasta salads are definitely NOT limited to macaroni, nor are they limited to only creamy dressings.

My personal favorite pasta salad is the BLT pasta salad that I make that was inspired by a menu item at Southern Star. A friend of mine makes a fantastic bacon ranch pasta salad. And then there is this tortellini pasta salad…

Inspired By Antipasto Ingredients

A few years back I discovered a chopped salad on Smitten Kitchen that was inspired by the ingredients of an Italian sub, one of Philip’s very favorite sandwiches. The salad was hearty and did not disappoint. Every time I buy the ingredients I will eat the salad for at least a week.

I wanted to make something along the lines of that salad but with pasta instead. A tortellini pasta salad seemed to fit the bill because I❤tortellini. I mean, cheesy stuffed pasta, right?

This antipasto tortellini pasta salad is infinitely adaptable. I’m not Italian, but as I was researching antipasto ingredients it certainly seemed like there were few rules. You can use what you have on hand and it is definitely going to be delicious.

I used salami, pepperoni, mini bocconcini (mozzarella balls), sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, a sprinkle of basil, and a tart vinaigrette. Roasted red peppers, chickpeas, prosciutto, marinated mushrooms…there are lots of delicious things you could toss in there. Just let it chill in the fridge for a bit and you have a perfect tortellini pasta salad!

Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Plate!

Mary

Yield: 4 main dish serves or 8-10 side dish servings

Tortellini Pasta Salad

15 minPrep Time:

8 minCook Time:

23 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

For the dressing

2 tablespoons red wine, white wine, or sherry vinegar
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 tablespoon ground black pepper

For the pasta salad

9-10 ounces refrigerated cheese tortellini, cooked according to package directions (one regular sized package or 1/2 of a large package)
1/2 cup julienned or diced salami
1/2 cup julienned or diced pepperoni
2 canned artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1/4 cup kalamata olives, diced
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, julienned or diced
4 ounces mozzarella pearls, diced bocconcini, or diced fresh mozzarella
1/4 cup julienned fresh basil
salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Whisk the vinaigrette ingredients together in a small bowl or shake together in a small jar.
Rinse the cooked tortellini with cold water and allow it to stand until cooled, shaking the colander occasionally to drain the water away.
Combine the cooked tortellini in a large bowl with the remaining ingredients. Pour the vinaigrette over and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. The salad will keep covered in the refrigerator for 4-5 days.

Nutrition

https://chattavore.com/tortellini-pasta-salad/

Easy Caesar Dressing (No-Egg Recipe) + Video

September 21, 2017

This easy Caesar dressing is easy to make in your blender or food processor and requires no eggs, so it lasts a long time. And it’s SO tasty! Scroll down for video.

Essentially, Caesar salad came into my life when Philip Haymaker came into my life. Well, when he came into my life full-time, anyway (since we knew each other for four years before we started dating).

I remember what he ordered on our first date: angel hair pasta with tomato-basil sauce and a Caesar salad. That was on a Tuesday night. We went out again on Friday…I don’t remember what entrée he ordered, but I remember this: he ordered a Caesar salad. And almost ever restaurant salad that he has ordered in the last fourteen and a half (!) years has been the same.

I don’t mean to imply that I had never encountered (or eaten) a Caesar salad before that first date. I recall a Caesar salad at a Red Lobster in California when I was visiting my aunt the summer before eighth grade. I also remember telling my mom about it and her saying, “Do you like Caesar salad?” in a shocked sort of way. It’s just that my family didn’t eat too many Caesar salads back then….most of our salads were of the iceberg variety, with tomatoes and maybe some green peppers or avocado mixed in, usually with a creamy ranch or blue cheese dressing. It’s actually funny to think about that now because my mom and my sister are pretty much completely enamored with Caesar salad these days and the four of us threaten each other with steak knives to see who’s going to get the last of the salad (not really but almost).

Caesar dressing is an enigma of sorts and there are all types of stories about what Caesar salad is supposed to be. You know what I say? Caesar salad is supposed to be good. I don’t think when Caesar Cardini threw together the first Caesar salad in his Tijuana hotel kitchen that he swore then and there under his breath to seek revenge on anyone that dared to change the recipe.

So here’s how it goes…you can put eggs in….or leave them out. You can use anchovies, or maybe you prefer paste (I do) or maybe you’d rather just use Worcestershire sauce (which contains anchovies)? Okay. Maybe you like your cheese shredded, or maybe you like it grated. Whatevs. Do you like to rub the bowl with garlic or do you like to crush the garlic into your dressing? Have it your way. Would you rather make a pourable dressing or would you rather assemble the salad in the bowl then make the dressing right there on the lettuce (as I did in this post)? The world is your oyster.

I’ve been doing it that way for a while: lettuce in the bowl, then egg yolks, garlic, cheese, lemon juice/vinegar, olive oil, and cheese plus croutons. I like it that way….but here’s what I don’t like: one-day salad. Make that one-hour salad. We all know that once you dress lettuce it’s done for….so I was happy when my aunt gave me her easy Caesar dressing recipe (which I used to have before the blog but lost). It doesn’t contain eggs so it’s got a relatively long shelf-life (I’ve kept it for up to four days in my fridge) and it emulsifies beautifully if you blend it just fast enough, and you just use what you need.

As you can see, this is not a very “traditional” salad I’ve photographed for you here….I didn’t have bread to make croutons so I crushed up some Stacy’s Simply Naked pita chips. They were perfect. And while I prefer shredded cheese on my salads because it coats the leaves oh so perfectly, cheese (Grana Padano in this case but usually Parmigiano Reggiano) shaved with a vegetable peeler makes a nicer visual impact for photos. My easy Caesar dressing pairs perfectly with this fresh salad.

This easy Caesar dressing is quick enough that you can keep it in the fridge all the time. Which you’ll want to do.

Mary

Yield: 12 servings
2 tablespoons
45
Easy Caesar Dressing
10 minPrep Time:
10 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients
1 tablespoon anchovy paste (or 3-4 flat or rolled anchovy fillets)
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
juice of 1/2 lemon
2/3 cups neutral-flavored oil (I use grapeseed, but canola, safflower, or vegetable oil will work as well)
salt and pepper (to taste)
Instructions
Press the garlic through a garlic press or grate on a Microplane or fine grater. Place in a food processor or blender or a container you can fit your immersion blender into (like my homemade mayonnaise, a pint-sized Mason jar works well here) along with all of the other ingredients except the oil and vinegar.
Mix well, carefully breaking up/mashing the anchovy fillets if you are using them.
Add the oil and vinegar and blend on the highest speed that your machine allows until completely smooth and emulsified. Use a leaf of the lettuce you will be using to make your salad to taste; adjust seasonings. Store in the refrigerator.

Nutrition

7.8.1.2
433
https://chattavore.com/easy-caesar-dressing/

Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Plate.

Cobb Salad Meal Prep

March 31, 2017

This Cobb salad meal prep tutorial will help you prep ingredients for a week’s worth of delicious salads in an hour or less, including homemade dressing!

What’s your lunch situation? Mine is pretty abysmal, I have to admit. And that’s really sad, because you guys, I’m a food blogger. Everything I eat is supposed to be delicious, gourmet, and totally Instagrammable, right? This is not the case.

What’s funny is that when I was a teacher, I used to think that people who worked outside of schools pretty much had it made. I mean, I always ate lunch with my kids (not required, but preschool teachers know this is best practice) so lunch usually meant scarfing whatever I was eating while simultaneously opening yogurt pouches and milk cartons, refereeing arguments, and making sure everyone stayed in their seat. Oh, wait, don’t forget the time I was told I was a terrible human being for not sharing my cheese dip with a kid from another class because he “liked cheese dip too” and “adults are supposed to share their food with kids”. Never mind that he had a full lunch in front of him and I had two tablespoons of cheese dip. Anyway…

Fast forward to today. There are many great things about my job, but the lunch arrangement is not one of them. I never thought that eating at a table would feel like a treat. Seriously. There are weeks that it doesn’t happen at all. I frequently eat in my car…it’s been a while since I’ve had to eat while driving, but there was definitely a period of time when everything had to be able to be consumed with one hand and no utensils. I have an office, but it is very rare that I’m there at lunch time (or at all). I’ve started forcing myself to frequently pack a lunch that requires utensils so I am forced to at least eat my lunch while not driving. Microwave access is definitely an issue, so it’s either got to be cold or able to go into a Thermos unless I know that I’ll be able to use a microwave, which is rare.

Plus, I’m terrible at packing my lunch. I do best when I plan ahead (big surprise there). I am not a person who can eat a PB&J every single day, but if I plan something really good I can eat it for a week without feeling like I’m gonna lose my mind. Turkey & cheese croissants, soup in a Thermos, and a really good salad are some of my faves. I’ve decided to really make an effort to spend the time prepping everything on Sundays so I don’t have to stress over it on weeknights.

One thing…I don’t really like the whole “put everything in the containers on Sunday night and just grab them as you need them” idea, at least not for salads. There’s too much danger of things getting soggy or rotty and I’m not down with that. So, I prep everything ahead like a little mini salad bar and then assemble the salad the night before so I can pick out any unsavory bits.

This Cobb salad is super simple. It took me about an hour from start to finish, including making the dressing, roasting the chickpeas, boiling the eggs, and chopping the lettuce, cheese, and cucumbers. Cobb salad usually has chicken, but I really, really dislike chicken that’s been sitting in the fridge, so I subbed in the crispy roasted chickpeas. Also, Cobb salad is traditionally served with a vinaigrette, but I made my own ranch using the recipe from the BTC Old-Fashioned Grocery cookbook (affiliate link)(and here’s my own ranch dressing recipe). Everything gets its own container and I assemble it in my Systema salad container the night before. This salad will get me through the week, and I’ll start over again next Sunday!

Shared on Weekend Potluck on The Country Cook!

Recommended for this recipe:

Mary

Yield: 5 salads

Cobb Salad Meal Prep

30 minPrep Time:

30 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

2-3 hearts of romaine
1 cucumber, seeded and diced
1 package grape tomatoes
2 avocados
5 ounces cheddar cheese, cubed, or crumbled blue cheese
5 strips bacon, cooked
5 eggs, boiled
your choice of dressing
your choice of crunchy toppings - I used roasted chickpeas, sesame sticks, and roasted, salted pistachios

Instructions

Chop the romaine into bite-sized pieces. Place in a salad spinner and fill with water then drain and spin, or place in a colander and rinse thoroughly then shake the colander. Spread the lettuce down the center of a strip of 4 or 5 paper towels then roll the lettuce up. Place the lettuce in a gallon-sized zipper bag and refrigerate.
Store the cucumbers in a covered bowl. Store the cheese in a sandwich bag or a covered bowl. Store the bacon in whole strips in a sandwich bag and the eggs in an egg carton, unpeeled.
To assemble the salad, place a few handfuls of lettuce (about 1 1/2 to 2 cups), a couple of spoonfuls of cucumber, 3 or 4 tomatoes, 1/4 avocado (I leave it in the peel then just scoop it out before I eat), and a diced egg in a covered bowl. In a separate container (or a separate section of a salad container), place a piece of bacon, chopped, an ounce (about 1/4 cup) of cheese, your choice of crunchy toppings, and a small container of dressing. Refrigerate until ready to serve or carry in a bag with ice packs.

Notes

You can add chopped chicken, turkey, or ham to this salad if you would like.

Nutrition

https://chattavore.com/cobb-salad-meal-prep/

This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the cost to you. For more information, please see my disclosures. Thank you for supporting my blog!

Creamy Honey Lime Dressing with Ginger

August 1, 2016

This honey lime dressing is sweet and creamy with a spicy hit of ginger (completely optional!). It’s perfect for your summer (or winter) salads!

Writing a food blog is an interesting dichotomy. My life is filled with food – cookbooks, cooking magazines, blogs, lists of recipes to make, food photos, and all the rich food that you could ever hope to try. Problem is that I think about food so much that a lot of times when it comes time to make the food I can’t bring myself to. We end up eating way too much indulgent food because that’s what we have around, and my mindful eating is shot (eating cuz you ate is strong around here).

One of my constant goals is to fit more fruits and vegetables into our diet. As much as I would love to be one of those organized ladies who keeps perfectly chopped up salad greens (I even have a tutorial about that), fruits, and other tasty veggies stored flawlessly in my fridge, ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice, the reality is quite the opposite. I love fruits and vegetables – salad especially – but even when I take the time to pre-prep my salad greens I usually end up forgetting about them. Getting time to prep them is a rare occurrence; I work two jobs (ahem, behavior analyst and blogger) in addition to trying to enjoy my family, so I try to carve out time that I’m not busy each week. Heck, after making bread by hand for a good long while then buying bakery loaves for the past year, I caved this week and bought a bread maker. I am not too proud to use a machine.

One of the things that helps me remember to eat my greens is having some sort of fabulous dressing in the fridge. Homemade ranch and green goddess are two of my go-tos, but during the summer I want something to go with fruity salads. To me, spinach, arugula, and tender mixed greens pair perfectly with berries and peaches, and the whole combination needs a sweet and light dressing to complement it. Enter this creamy honey lime dressing. I didn’t want my honey lime dressing to be a vinaigrette; as much as I love vinaigrettes, sometimes I think the acid from the vinegar is a little much, and I wanted a creamy, not oil-based, dressing.

Turns out that Greek yogurt is a perfect base for a creamy honey lime dressing. I whisked together Greek yogurt, honey, lime zest and juice, a splash of apple cider vinegar, and a hit of fresh ginger to make this sweet, tangy, and slightly spicy dressing. It is the perfect foil for the earthy flavor of the spinach in this salad (and would perfectly complement a plate of bitter, spicy arugula) and pairs deliciously with the sweet summer fruit. If you don’t want the spice, you could leave out the ginger, but honestly, it’s very understated (Philip would have liked more and I thought it was just perfect).

Try this creamy honey lime dressing on your fresh summery salads!

Mary

Yield: 1 1/4 cups dressing

Creamy Honey Lime Dressing with Ginger

5 minPrep Time:

5 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (I used Chobani whole milk Greek yogurt)
1/2 cup honey
zest and juice of 1 lime (be sure to zest it before juicing it!)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger (about a 2-inch piece, peeled) (optional)

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until well-combined, or whisk together in a small bowl or jar. Store in a lidded bowl or jar in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Nutrition

https://chattavore.com/creamy-honey-lime-dressing-with-ginger/

This honey lime dressing is sweet and creamy with a spicy hit of ginger (completely optional!). It's perfect for your summer (or winter) salads! | recipe from Chattavore.com

Barbecue Chicken Salad

September 23, 2015

This barbecue chicken salad is chock-full of good stuff…oven barbecued chicken thighs, crisp lettuce, fresh tomatoes and corn, delicious cheese, and creamy barbecue-ranch dressing, all topped off with a few crunchy corn chips.

I spent most of August trying to figure out how to get fresh corn into all the things. I did manage to get it in most of the things, at least. I wish I could have shared this salad with you earlier, but hey…I didn’t. So, corn is out of season now, but that’s okay. The great thing about corn is that frozen corn is almost as good as fresh…no cooking, just thaw it and throw it on the salad.

Barbecue chicken is not something that I’ve made at home a lot, and honestly the idea of a barbecue chicken salad always seemed oddly overwhelming to me. That may seem bizarre if you read my blog much and you know the types of food that I cook on a regular basis. The thing about me, though, is that I am really, really bad at making meals that require me to make more than one item at a time. That’s why I make so many one-pot and one-dish meals and almost never make a “meat and three” type of meal (I recently acquired Ina Garten’s book Make it Ahead and with her encouragement I hope to get better at, well, making things ahead. Why, just last night we had a dinner of cornbread dressing that I assembled the day before, cranberry sauce I made the day before, and turkey thighs cooked in the slow cooker).

Anyway, why on earth was I scared of barbecue chicken salad??!?!? I must have read a recipe that was overly complicated. My recipe is not. Sear the chicken, slather it with sauce, throw it in the oven. While it’s roasting, chop and assemble the rest of the ingredients. Boom. Done. The Fritos were my naughty touch. I love those things (and my sister is gagging because we have an inside joke about Fritos) and I cannot stop eating them. Oh well. They were awfully delicious on top of this barbecue chicken salad!

Yield: 4 salads

Barbecue Chicken Salad

20 minPrep Time:

20 minCook Time:

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Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 pounds chicken thighs, trimmed
salt and pepper
1/4 cup ranch dressing
1 cup barbecue sauce
2 hearts of romaine, chopped, washed, and dried
1 cup corn kernels (frozen-thawed, or fresh-1-2 ears)
2 medium tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/4 cup monterey Jack cheese + 1/4 cup pepper Jack cheese (or you can use 1/2 cup of just one of these)
corn chips (e.g. Fritos)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Heat the oil in a medium oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the chicken thighs on both sides with salt and pepper. Cook for 2 minutes on each side.
While the chicken is searing, whisk together 1/4 cup barbecue sauce with the dressing. Cover and place in the refrigerator. Brush the chicken liberally on both sides with the remaining barbecue sauce (I like mine good and sticky, so I used all of the sauce). Place the skillet into the oven and cook the chicken for 15 minutes. Remove and place on a cutting board to cool slightly.
To assemble the salads, divide the lettuce, corn, tomatoes, and cheese among 4 plates. Cut the chicken into strips or chunks and divide among the plates. Drizzle each salad with 2 tablespoons of dressing then top with desired amount of corn chips. Serve immediately.

Notes

To assemble into a Mason jar salad, allow the chicken to cool completely then place the ingredients into the jar in this order: dressing, chicken, cheese, tomatoes, corn, lettuce. Place corn chips in a separate container.

Nutrition

https://chattavore.com/barbecue-chicken-salad/

Click here to print the recipe for barbecue chicken salad!