13 Celebrity Chef Tips For The Best Pasta Salad
Whether you're looking for the perfect dish to make for picnics, potlucks, and parties, or you aim to create a simple and healthy lunch, pasta salad is the answer. It's a classic that has stood the test of time. But how do you know if your pasta salad is reaching its full potential? You might be unknowingly ruining your pasta salad with small but significant mistakes. These missteps, however, can easily be fixed with guidance from some of the culinary world's most popular experts. With a few handy pasta salad tips, you can make your next creation a truly gourmet meal.
From the Italian-inspired dishes of Giada De Laurentiis to the understated sophistication of Ina Garten recipes, these experts bring a wealth of expertise and creativity to the table. Let's take a closer look at some celebrity chefs' techniques for achieving the ideal texture, selecting unique and fresh ingredients, and balancing flavors for pasta salads that are sure to impress at any gathering.
Ina Garten encourages us to use salty ingredients
According to Ina Garten, the secret to crafting a truly exceptional pasta salad is simple but transformative: Don't hold back on the salty additions. With years of experience in the kitchen, Garten has discovered that many pasta salads fall short of expectations. "The thing about pasta salad I've learned over the years is that most of them are so boring; they don't really have any flavor," she said on her Food Network show "The Barefoot Contessa" via YouTube.
In this recipe for her tomato feta pasta salad, she doesn't skimp on the sodium-heavy ingredients that infuse the dish with bold flavor. Olives add a briny essence and the feta adds a tangy richness, while the Parmesan contributes a nutty saltiness. Capers and a dash of kosher salt in the dressing further intensify the savory profile. To balance out the saltiness of these additions, she combines them with olive oil and acidic red wine vinegar.
When it comes to flavor, there's no need to hold back. By embracing salty ingredients, Garten suggests you can transform a once-dull pasta salad into a culinary masterpiece that will have you redefining your expectations for this classic dish.
Giada De Laurentiis suggests fregola is the way to win over skeptics
In Giada De Laurentiis's recipe for her Sardinian pasta salad, she makes an unexpected choice of pasta. Typically pasta salads are made with heartier pasta shapes like fusilli, macaroni, or penne. But in this one, the famous chef, who proudly has Italian roots, opts for a less familiar pasta known as fregola, which resembles small pasta balls. She believes this swap will win over pasta salad haters.
Fregola has a history that dates back to the 10th century in Sardinia, Italy. It offers a pleasant toasty, nutty flavor and a satisfying chewy texture that works well with a variety of fresh vegetables. If you're having trouble finding fregola, opt for its Middle Eastern cousin known as Israeli couscous or pearl couscous. Both make an excellent pasta base in a pasta salad when you're feeling like switching things up.
Try cooking bell peppers like in this Bobby Flay recipe
Bell peppers are a common ingredient in macaroni salads and various pasta salads. Typically, these salads feature raw ingredients, except for the pasta itself. However, in Bobby Flay's Southwestern pasta salad , he suggests incorporating grilled yellow peppers. Cooking bell peppers before incorporating them into your pasta salad is a great idea for several reasons. Whether you choose to grill them, use the gas stove, or roast them in the oven, this step will not only diminish the bitter taste but also enhance their natural sweetness, imparting a delightful smoky undertone that elevates the overall flavor of your pasta salad. Additionally, the cooking process will tenderize the peppers' tough skins, making them more palatable and easier to digest.
If you're typically not a fan of raw bell peppers and tend to avoid pasta salads with them, why not consider giving grilled ones a try next time? It might just change your perspective.
Rachael Ray suggests using vegetable stock in the dressing
Renowned celebrity chef, accomplished cookbook author, and beloved television personality Rachael Ray has shared plenty of tips for home cooks throughout her career in the spotlight. In her recipe for Italian pasta salad, she chooses corkscrew pasta as the base. Other ingredients include red onions, jarred roasted red peppers, cubanelle peppers, pepperoncini, and provolone.
While we can learn from this recipe how incorporating preserved ingredients in a pasta salad is a convenient shortcut for faster preparation, the true tip lies within her dressing. Ray departs from convention by introducing an unexpected ingredient, which takes the pasta salad to the next level. In lieu of water, she recommends incorporating vegetable stock into the mix, along with garlic, red wine vinegar, and a sprinkle of fresh parsley. These components are combined in a food processor, where extra virgin olive oil is swirled in afterward, resulting in a simple yet remarkably unique and flavorful dressing.
Gordon Ramsay makes a point to flavor the pasta water
The debate over which pasta shape is best in pasta salads continues, but consider orzo if you're looking for something different. It's chef-approved for pasta salad due to its size and ability to work well with a variety of flavors. Gordon Ramsay chooses orzo for his pasta salad on YouTube, claiming it's "one of the hidden delicacies of Italian pasta." While he does warn that it has a neutral taste on its own, it's good at absorbing flavors. Thus, he emphasizes how important it is to generously season the cooking water, enhancing it with salt, olive oil, and a fragrant bay leaf.
When preparing pasta for use in salads, it's crucial to begin the flavor enhancement process from the get-go. Given that pasta salads are typically served cold or at room temperature, bringing out their natural flavors demands a more deliberate approach than when serving them hot. It's even recommended that doubling the amount of salt is a small pasta salad tweak that can result in a much more flavorful final product.
Michael Symon shares how to choose the proper pasta
When it comes to choosing the perfect pasta shape, it's important to consider the accompanying sauce. Finding the right pairing of sauce and noodle isn't necessarily as simple as it seems. Not all sauces complement all types of pasta. For instance, if you're working with a lighter sauce, such as one with a base of oil and citrus, it's best to opt for a lighter pasta. Celebrity chef Michael Symon emphasizes this in his pasta salad recipe. "When the sauce is hearty, the pasta is hearty," he states while demonstrating the recipe on Food Network, via YouTube. "So the more delicate the sauce, the more delicate the noodle."
For Symon's pasta salad, he creates a tangy and creamy sauce by combining garlic, red wine vinegar, salt, black pepper, fresh oregano, sour cream, and olive oil. He adds orecchiette while still warm in order for it to really absorb the sauce. Orecchiette is a round, concave pasta that is a good medium-weight noodle for those in between sauces like this one, which is creamy yet not overly heavy.
Ryan Scott has some expert flavor tips
When celebrity chef Ryan Scott makes pasta salad, he uses a few handy tips and tricks to amplify the flavors. While many pasta salad dressings typically feature lemon juice, Scott suggests charring the lemons before extracting the juice. "This elevates lemons to a notch of flavor that you've never had in your life," he explained while demonstrating his pasta salad recipe during an appearance on "TODAY," via YouTube. Charring the lemons will tone down the sourness and make the lemon flavor smoother. To create charred lemons, all you have to do is halve and grill them on a grill or in a pan.
In addition to the charred lemon juice, chef Scott's elevated simple dressing also includes dijon, olive oil, salt, and pepper. As is often recommended by experienced chefs, Scott reiterates the importance of adding the hot pasta directly into the dressing. Neglecting this step is a common mistake in pasta salad preparation, resulting in reduced flavor absorption and dry, sticky noodles. So always remember to add the pasta while it's hot, just like the professionals do.
Samin Nosrat has a trick for making tomatoes as sweet as can be
A number of pasta salads incorporate fresh cherry tomatoes, and some even include sundried tomatoes, but here's an even more unique way to add them to pasta salad inspired by Samin Nosrat, the host of Netflix's "Salt Fat Acid Heat." She has some of the best tips for beginner cooks and her knowledge and wisdom can be used to put a tomato twist on traditional pasta salad.
In Nosrat's simple summer pasta dish that she shared on the Netflix kids cooking show "Waffles + Mochi," she makes what she calls "tomato candy." This novelty is made by coating cherry tomatoes in olive oil, salt, and sugar, then slow-roasting them for hours. The outcome is an irresistibly sweet, deeply caramelized, and candied delicacy. So, the next time you're making a super simple, standard pasta salad that calls for tomatoes, why not try this trick and embrace the sweeter things in life? Just be sure to balance it with salty and savory flavors and it's sure to be a success.
Alex Guarnaschelli shares her pasta wisdom
Alex Guarnaschelli has shared a wealth of tips for home cooks over the years. When it comes to pasta salad, some useful tips can be gathered from the Food Network Star's recipe for simple whole wheat pasta salad. To start, incorporating whole wheat noodles into your pasta salad is an easy way to infuse it with an extra layer of flavor due to the distinct nuttiness characteristic of whole wheat, which also imparts a subtle hint of sweetness. It's a simple yet unexpected way to put a twist on a traditional pasta salad. Using gluten-free pasta can also have a similar effect.
Guarnaschelli, who has frequently appeared on "The Kitchen" also imparts another bit of wisdom that's helpful in any pasta salad recipe. She suggests not worrying too much about draining the pasta to perfection. In fact, you should consider retaining a bit of the pasta water to use later, just in case your sauce turns out too thick or if the pasta becomes excessively sticky.
Ree Drummond goes heavy on the veggies
Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman, has carved a niche for herself as a homespun chef of the modern American West. In her popular "Sunshine Pasta Salad" recipe, a pivotal piece of advice stands out, one that we should take to heart when making any pasta salad. While pasta salad often leans heavily on the pasta and less on the salad aspect, Drummond suggests thinking about it the other way around.
Her advice is to go heavier on the ingredients that aren't pasta. Picture the pasta as the canvas for a medley of fresh ingredients, rather than the primary focus. She prepares the dish on her Food Network show and says via YouTube: "This is what I like in a pasta salad. The pasta is kind of there as a base, but I love as many ingredients as you can fit in the bowl." Drummond artfully heaps a mound of yellow, red, and orange ingredients atop the pasta in the mixing bowl, making the ratio of fresh vegetables seemingly twice the amount of the pasta itself.
Sunny Anderson has a couple of tips for dressings
To break away from the usual pasta shapes, Sunny Anderson selects pearled couscous as the star of her pasta salad. While demonstrating her simple recipe on an episode of "The Kitchen," via YouTube, she suggests considering the SASHA acronym (Sweet, Acidic, Salt, Heat, and Allium) as a guide to create a well-rounded dressing for pasta salad. She assembles her dressing using ingredients like honey, orange juice, salt, Dijon mustard, olive oil, and black pepper. While her dressing components might not precisely align with all the SASHA categories (technically she's missing an allium), it serves as a handy tool for inspiration when preparing any marinade or dressing.
In Anderson's peas and pasta salad, she adds Worcestershire sauce to the dressing. Worcestershire sauce, known for its complex flavor profile from ingredients like anchovies, tamarind, garlic, and spices, is an easy way to add instant umami boost to any dish. When incorporated into a pasta salad dressing, it adds an often-needed depth of flavor.
Geoffrey Zakarian doesn't overdress
The dressing is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of pasta salad but as we've mentioned previously, keeping it simple is often the better way to go. Food Network star Geoffrey Zakaraian goes a step further by advising against the typical mayo-based dressings often encountered at barbecues and potlucks. "A lot of dressings and mayo is too much dressing and it just overwhelms the pasta," he said on a segment of "The Kitchen," via YouTube.
For a fresher flavor, stick with simple vinaigrettes. In his pasta salad, Zakarian makes a small amount of dressing with mustard, olive oil, chardonnay vinegar, and black pepper. Once the warm pasta is added to the dressing, he stirs in the other toppings, including a heap of fresh arugula, giving it a boost of greens which would be a great addition to a wide range of pasta salads. His co-hosts also emphasize another benefit of avoiding mayo, particularly for outdoor dining occasions, which is that it eliminates the need for constant refrigeration, making it a safer option for hot summer days.
Martha Stewart is all about using out-of-the-ordinary noodles
Martha Stewart's recipe for a vegetable pasta salad with lemon juice on YouTube takes an unconventional approach by incorporating vegetable noodles. She uses Wacky Mac vegetable spirals, but you can readily find similar vegetable-infused noodles at various grocery stores and supermarkets. For instance, one of Trader Joe's popular dry pastas is their "Radiatore of Many Colors," which not only adds a vibrant visual element but also imparts a subtle yet distinct vegetal flavor to your pasta salad.
While spaghetti isn't commonly found in pasta salads, Stewart's spaghetti salad recipe boldly features this unexpected noodle. The key to success here lies in a light dressing that complements the delicate nature of the thin spaghetti. Stewart prepares a simple vinaigrette and sticks with timeless favorites: bell peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, capers, parsley, and feta cheese. The result is a refreshing, timeless pasta salad with a light and airy texture.