The inspiration for this easy pasta salad is a Nudelsalat (literally noodle salad, in german) I once had. Particularly the lightness of it was very pleasant. This salad is made great by the addition of cucumbers,olives, chopped boiled eggs, ham, and some other ingredients.
Pick up a fork and take a mouthful of that mix of soft but not mushy pasta, crunchy diced cucumbers, strong and salty black olives, and the dressing that lightly covers them all and hides in the rills of the fusilli, the acidity of the vinegary onions cutting through the richness.
Other salads worth attempting are:
Ingredients
This salad is a mixture of cucumbers, olives, carrots, onions, ham, eggs and a salad dressing.
Instructions
There are three main steps to making this salad. First cook the fusilli and let it cool, then chop all the vegetables, the ham and the eggs. Finally prepare the dressing and mix everything together.
Instead of using regular salad cream or just mayonnaise, this dressing is a blend of sweetened yoghurt, mustard, mayonnaise, a crack of black pepper, and a dash of olive oil and salt.
This recipe is not overly creamy and has just the right ratio of dressing to the salad.
Variations
- Vegetarian - you can omit the ham to make this salad entirely vegetarian.
- Mayonnaise - instead of using a combination of mayonnaise, yoghurt and salad cream, you can use only mayonnaise for this salad.
Tips
If you don’t have any fusilli available, you can use any pasta of your choosing as long as you find it easy to work with and don't overcook it to mush. Spaghetti is not particularly the best fit for this recipe whereas a pasta such as macaroni, works perfectly.
I find that pasta salads in general go well with grilled meat or grilled sausages and are a great alternative to potato salads. Make this salad ahead of time and store it in the fridge until you're ready to serve.
Easy Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 200 grams fusilli pasta
- 2 eggs boiled and diced
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 3 tbsp vinegar
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp sweetened yoghurt
- 1 tbsp mustard
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- black pepper
- salt
- 1 handful olives quartered
- 2 slices ham chopped
- 1 medium carrot grated
- 1 medium cucumber diced
Instructions
- Cook fusilli according to instructions on the packaging. This should be approx 8-10 minutes. Leave to cool.
- Soak onions in vinegar for about 3 minutes.
- Mix mayonnaise, sweetened yoghurt, and mustard in a bowl. Add a teaspoon of olive oil, a generous pinch of black pepper and a pinch of salt.
- Mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.
- Remove onions from vinegar, run under water briefly and pat dry with a paper towel. Alternatively, you can let them drip off for about a minute in a sieve.
- In a large bowl, add onions, fusilli, eggs, olives, ham, carrots, and cucumber and add the dressing.
- Adjust salt as necessary and place the salad in the fridge until ready to serve.
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