Basic Ingredients For A Pasta Salad

Pasta salads aren't just vegetarian recipes, even if they lend themselves beautifully to vegetarianism. In actual fact, there's something of a formula for making a pasta salad, and the great thing is that when you come to the "protein" category, you are just as free to add beans and cheese as you are to add cold ham or slicked chicken.

You really just need to remember this formula, and you can almost do without consulting formal recipes at all.

The website www.allrecipes.com/HowTo/Five-Steps-to-Perfect-Pasta-Salad/Detail.aspx has a feature called "Five Steps to Perfect Pasta Salad" that starts, of course, with bite-sized pastas themselves.

The next step includes key ingredients, such as slightly cooked or raw vegetables, some protein like seafood or sliced cooked chicken, or perhaps canned beans and crumbled mild cheeses. She suggests one major flavor supported by two others.

Her third step is "Intense flavors," which involves things like peppers, onions or stronger cheeses. Step four is onions and herbs, and then you would want a creamy or vinaigrette type of dressing.

There are all sorts of good, even responsible reasons to create your own pasta salad. You might not have any other ideas for using the last couple of carrots in your fridge, or perhaps you want to finish off that feta cheese before it goes bad.

Making a salad like this isn't just quick and easy, but can help you make good use of all the food you buy. You can make sure you're not wasting any food, and improvise a healthy meal at the same time.

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