Antipasto Salad
Spring is upon us and Easter typically kicks off the “Potluck” season for me and my friends. Potluck season can be great fun, and also great competition and exhausting. I’m always looking for ideas for something different.
For our friends, Italian food reigns supreme. And I love a good red sauce (in fact some of my home made sauce is thawing on the counter right now getting ready for meat and perhaps a baked ziti with the fresh mozzarella I just made (yeah, I’m bragging, I made cheese!)
As much as I love red sauce I need alternatives. We fall into the antipasto, salad, meatballs and sauce rut too easily. Even though all of these items are hand made with recipes from the old country and taste amazing, I sometimes want change.
As it’s often hot in Florida I also was looking for a cold dish, so I came up with an Antipasto Salad. The key to this salad is dressing the noodles as soon as they are drained, they won’t stick together and they’ll absorb the flavor even more.
Antipasto Salad
1 pound pasta shells
1 cup olive oil
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2T minced garlic (use the jarred garlic packed in oil)
Fresh ground pepper to taste
1 Cup Olives *see note
1 jar giardino mix (sold near the pickles, it typically has peppers, carrots, cauliflower and celery)
1/2 pound diced ham
1/2 pound diced salami
1/2 pound diced provolone
1/2 pound diced mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/4 cup diced flat leaf parsley
Cook pasta according to directions and drain, while pasta is cooking whisk together olive oil, vinegar, garlic and pepper for dressing. Note, I intentionally omitted salt from this recipe, be sure to salt the pasta when cooking, but the olives, meats and cheese are all salty flavors adding salt to the dressing would likely be too much.
As soon as the pasta is drained, transfer to a large bowl and stir in the dressing.
Add remaining ingredients and toss, cover and refrigerate overnight.
For the olives, I always have open jars of olives around, there’s no “wrong” olive to use, but I suggest a mix of green and dark olives like a queen, pimento stuffed Spanish olives, Kalamata olives. Make sure they are pitted, nobody wants to be surprised with an olive pit!
You can also switch the cheeses if you have others on hand or the meats.
Because of the dressing this will last about a week refrigerated. Due to the meats, don’t leave this unrefrigerated for long.
Happy Pot-lucking!
Until next time, keep the wine glass close and the whiners at arms length!
