Today there’s a little neighborhood get together and I told them I’d bring Broccoli Salad and Pasta Salad. I love both these salads. Broccoli salad often has raisins and I do not like raisins. This one has dried cranberries, which is an easy substitute if a recipe calls for raisins. I also like these recipes because they last in the fridge for four or five days. In the summer, having a cold salad ready to serve is nice!
The broccoli salad I made pretty much straight by the recipe.
The pasta salad I thought needed some help. I added a bit of honey, some cajun seasoning, a bit of apple cider vinegar, extra oregano (which is weird for me). I think the recipe called for salami or pepperoni as an option so I added pepperoni. After all that, it still seemed blah so I added about 3/4 cup of pizza sauce. I think that was what it needed.
Good salads for hot weather!
Helen says
I love that your neighborhood is so friendly! Ours is like that.
danielle says
My husband loves my pasta salad so much that by the end of summer I am sick of it! Luckily we usually only make it during summer! I like raisins in things – but I love dried cranberries even more!
Teri says
Do you like grapes? I’ve had a broccoli salad with grapes that was good. I agree, cold salads on hot summer days can’t be beat!
Linda Garcia says
The recipe I use for broccoli salad also has grapes in it. I really like that salad.
Judy Laquidara says
I don’t really like sweet stuff mixed in my “real” food. The dried cranberries are just tart enough that I don’t mind those but I don’t think grapes would work for me.
Susan says
I make a similiar pasta salad but use mini pepperoni and mini mozzarella balls. And the flavor…well it comes from bottled Italian salad dressing. Let it sit for a few hours and the flavors come together…yummy!
Judy Laquidara says
I used turkey pepperoni and cut it into strips and mini mozzarella balls but I don’t like storebought Italian dressing (at least not the ones I’ve tried). I need to come up with a better dressing idea so I may try some different Italian dressings than what I’ve tried before. Thanks for that info.
Rebecca says
I haven;t tried it yet, but I think you might like the Budget Bytes tomato-basil vinaigrette recipe. She makes small batches, because home-made dressings shouldn’t be kept long. She uses dried basil (to keep the “budget” theme) but says fresh basil would be fine.
https://www.budgetbytes.com/tomato-basil-vinaigrette/
Judy Laquidara says
Thanks. I will try that.
Joyce says
I love a good pasta salad! Seeing your makes me think I need to make some…