Main Street Pasta Salad

23 Jan, 2023

Ingredients

Fresh

• 6-8 oz block Havarti cheese, diced
• 2 heads of Broccoli, very-ends only
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (see notes)
• 2-3 Bell Peppers, diced (anything but green)
• 15 oz Black olives, Sliced or small whole
• 1/2 Red onion, diced (Get one the size of your fist)
• 6-8 oz Summer sausage, diced
• 4-5 Mini Cucumbers, diced

Grocery

• 1.25 lb of Dialinti pasta (a 16 oz box is fine)
• Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning + Dry Italian Seasoning (see Notes)
• Whatever Italian dressings you have on hand (see Notes)
• Garlic Expressions Dressing (It’s a garlic-based vinaigrette) Try and seek this out, find an alternative or omit this ingredient entirely.

Instructions

1. Cook and Cool the Pasta: Boil the Ditalini pasta according to the package directions. Once cooked, drain and thoroughly rinse the pasta with cold water to cool it down.
2. Prep the Mix-ins: While the pasta cooks, use your favorite knife to dice the Havarti cheese, summer sausage, bell peppers, cucumbers, and red onion. Mince the garlic and trim the broccoli florets.
3. Combine the Base: Add the cooled pasta, all the prepped vegetables, cheese, sausage, and drained black olives into a very large mixing container (a 2.5-gallon tub works perfectly, as you will use this to store it later).
4. Add the Dry Seasoning: Liberally dust the entire top of the salad mixture with a blend of the dry Ranch and Italian seasonings, applying it heavily like powdered sugar on a dessert.
5. Mix by Hand: Put on a pair of vinyl gloves and mix everything together thoroughly by hand. Continue mixing until the natural moisture from the vegetables has completely absorbed the dry seasonings.
6. Dress the Salad: Remove the gloves and pour in your liquid dressings—typically a blend of the two Italian dressings and the garlic vinaigrette. Stir to combine.
7. Rest and Marinate: Cover the container and let the pasta salad sit in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours before serving. This is an essential step to let the flavors marry.

Italian Dressings I've used

• Newman’s Own Organics Italian
• Girard’s Champagne Vinaigrette
• Olive Garden Light Italian Dressing

Non-Italian Dressings I've Used

• Garlic Expressions Dressing
• Sweet Onion Bacon
• Briannas French Vinaigrette
• Harissa Ranch

Add a bit of each of the dressings to the pasta salad. I low-balled how much dressing we should use in the first couple of batches. The amount of dressing you add will depend on your particular taste, but know that the pasta absorbs quite a bit of the dressing when you let the batch sit for a while. It’s not the end of the world if you have to add more dressing later. You’d rather have drier pasta salad than have it floating in its own dressing. The soft cubes of Havarti cheese are a good visual indicator as to how dressed up the salad is.

Have lots of containers to pass out this salad to your family and friends. It looks great in those small Ball Mason jars. N’Joy!

Notes

• You’re only using a small section of the larger broccoli. Save the stalks and anything else not used and add to a large freezer bag for making vegetable stock in the future.
• Rubbermaid 2.5 gallon container (this is not an Affiliate link!)

on Garlic

• Legit cloves not the stuff in jars floating in oil
• In a hurry? Granulated garlic

on Black Olives

• Rarely spend too much time getting fancy with olives as they are all bathing in large amounts of salt.
• Drain these well, but straining is unnecessary unless you feel inclined.

on Summer Sausage

• Because Usingers is not readily available all over the states, the closest distant relative is Johnsonville. You’ll understand just how far that distance is if you come to Wisconsin and enjoy Usingers sausage!

Backup pasta options

• Tri-Colored Rotini
• Mini Farfalle
• Farfalle
• Cavatappi

on Seasonings

• Grocery stores sell packets of dry salad dressing bases you can use to make your own dressing at home. They also sell packs of four of five packets in a box. Grab yourself a box of Hidden Valley Ranch mix and also dry Italian Dressing Mix by whatever brand makes you happy inside. We empty all the packets of seasonings into a Ball Mason jar and shake it up to blend them all together.

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