Great summer pasta dish.

I kind of over-purchased some prosciutto that I used for a date night a few weeks ago.

Ok. I say over-purchased. I pretty much knew that I was buying too much, but I figured it’s never a bad thing to have really good cured meats laying around.

So bring on the prosciutto!

I, of course, ate some of it on it’s own with melon, but I still had plenty left over so I decided to make a big pasta salad with it.

This was absolutely perfect as a summer dish.

Prosciutto Pasta

Yield: Serves 6-8 as side.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

12 ounces bowtie pasta
1 Cup grape tomatoes, halved
1 lemon, juice only
2-3 ounces prosciutto, diced
1/4 Cup olive oil
A few big handfuls of arugula
Fresh Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

1) Cook bowtie pasta according to package.

2) Chop prosciutto into cubes. Add oil to a large pan over medium heat and add in prosciutto. Cook until crispy, about 3-4 minutes.

3) Add in halved tomatoes and stir to combine.

4) Toss in cooked, drained pasta and stir.

5) Add lemon juice.

6) If you want it creamier, add 1/2 cup cream or some of the original pasta water.

7) Toss in fresh arugula and taste for salt and pepper. It shouldn't need much salt.

8) Add grated cheese and serve it up!

A Simple Pasta Salad

There’s really only a few ingredients for this salad, but each of them brings something delicious.

Good stuff.

The real star of the show is the prosciutto of course. It’s better than bacon in my opinion. It also happens to be really expensive (usually around $30/pound for the good stuff) so a few ounces is all you need.

This was about 2-3 ounces of prosciutto.

A little goes a long way!

To really bring out the prosciutto flavor, I added a few tablespoons of olive oil to a large pan (big enough to fit all the pasta also) and then tossed in my prosciutto over medium heat.

It’s so thin that it crisps up very quickly and also flavors the oil with delicious cured meatiness.

Doesn't take long to crisp up.

Then I added my grape tomatoes (which I cut in half) to the pot just to warm up and take on some of that prosciutto flavor.

When my pasta was done and drained, I tossed it into the pan and stirred everything together really well along with the fresh lemon juice. The prosciutto, oil, and lemon juice will kind of stick to the pasta and make a very light, but flavorful sauce.

If you want it saucier, you could add 1/2 Cup of the pasta water or even 1/2 Cup of cream which would give it some serious, well, creaminess.

I kept mine really light and simple though.

All mixed up!

Once you get the base of the pasta all mixed together, add in the fresh arugula and grate on as much cheese as you want.

Taste it for salt and pepper. It probably won’t need much salt because the prosciutto and Parmesan are both very salty. I added a good pinch of red pepper flakes also for some heat but that’s pretty optional.

From the top.

All told, the whole thing only takes 15-20 minutes to toss together and it’s hearty enough to have as a quick dinner.

As with a lot of the dishes I’ve been making these days, leftovers are great cold for lunch the next day!

There’s a ton of stuff you could add into this to make it your own. Think of my recipe as just a base to get you started!

Quick and Tasty!

A week ago Betsy talked me into going to my first ever spinning class. If you aren’t familiar with spinning, it’s where you ride a sort-of uncomfortable bike for an hour or so while a very thin, svelte person yells at you to “CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN” while playing Top 20 hits.

So I loved it.

But after it was over I was pretty sore and hungry. Seriously hungry. Luckily I had planned for this by picking up a few ingredients for a quick tuna pasta salad that would be light, filling and nutritious. All the things I figured my body would need after I finished CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN.

Tuna Pasta Salad

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound bowtie pasta (you could use any good pasta salad pasta)
12 ounces packed tuna in water
1 (15 ounce) can cannellini beans
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 Cup olive oil
A handful of kalamata olives, chopped
2-3 Cups baby arugula
1 lemon, zest only
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Microplane zester

Directions:

1) Cook pasta according to package.

2) Mince garlic, chop olives, zest lemon, drain beans and tuna.

3) Add olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir well. Cook for a minute or two, but don't burn the garlic.

4) Add tuna and continue to cook. Stir and flake apart the tuna as it cooks.

5) Add drained pasta to dish along with beans and lemon zest. Stir well to combine.

6) Kill the heat and add olives and arugula.

7) Season with salt and pepper and serve right away. Leftovers are great cold!

A Simple Pasta Salad

This salad has some serious flavor in it, but only a few ingredients. It’s totally filling enough to have as a dinner and great for when you’re crunched for time.

These are the basics.

Basic stuff.

And after a few minutes, everything is prepped which just means that I minced the garlic, chopped up some olives, and drained my tuna.

Speaking of tuna, I guess you could use fresh tuna for this, but honestly, I like a really good quality canned tuna just fine for this meal.

This took about 2 minutes to prep.

Starting the dish

To start, add your olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the garlic and red pepper flakes.

It might look like a lot of oil, but it kind of acts as a sauce for the pasta and when you add in all the pasta and everything, it’s a perfect amount to just coat everything.

Smells good.

After the garlic and pepper flakes cook for a minute (don’t burn them), add in the tuna and stir it around so the tuna flakes apart.

Break it up well.

One part of this dish which is not negotiable in my mind is lemon zest. It adds a perfect lightness and acidity to the dish that really brightens all the flavors.

So don’t skip it! If you don’t have a zester, you could add a few Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, but the zest is really where it’s at.

Zest: most important.

Cook your pasta according to the package and once your tuna has cooked for a minute or two, add in the pasta and drained beans to the tuna and olive oil.

Stir this together really well until everything is mixed and the pasta is coated with oil.

Pasta and beans in the pot.

Turn off the heat and add in all your chopped olives and arugula. The heat from the pasta and everything will very slightly wilt the arugula but it’ll still be a bit crunchy which is awesome.

The color is also very pretty.

COLOR.

I added in some chopped olives also and don’t forget to season with salt and pepper. It shouldn’t need very much salt because the tuna and olives are pretty salty normally.

This dish really hit the spot after a workout though.

Every part of this is my favorite part.

Even after a workout, Betsy and I couldn’t polish off even half of this so we had tons of leftovers which were great for lunches. The salad is good cold or warm and actually gets a bit better I think on days two and three.

Quick, healthy, and delicious. What more could you ask for?

Oh yea and don’t forget to CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN!

There's goat cheese in there...

I’m noticing a trend with the pasta salads that I really like: They are freakin’ packed with flavor. If I’m making a meal out of a pasta salad, it needs to be flavorful. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it needs to be really heavy. The white bean pasta salad I made on Monday was pretty light actually.

This salad is a bit heavier, but still summer appropriate. Betsy and I loved it mainly because we have a near-fetish for sun-dried tomatoes. Ok. I guess I can only speak for myself there, but I’m pretty sure we both really like them. And you can’t tell from the top photo, but there’s also some creamy goat cheese folded into the pasta which makes it really rich.

It’s hard not to love this quick and simple dish.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Salad

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound Farfelle (bowtie) pasta
1 Cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 Cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 Cup pine nuts, toasted
2 Teaspoons balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
1 clove garlic
1/2 Cup olive oil
6-8 ounces fresh arugula
4 ounces goat cheese
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor (if you don't have one, you can just chop everything really finely)

Directions:

1) Cook pasta according to package and drain pasta and reserve 1 Cup of cooking water.

2) Process sun-dried tomatoes, Parmesan, pine nuts, and garlic in a food processor, blender, or chop finely. For more flavor, toast pine nuts in a dry skillet until fragrant over medium heat, about 5 minutes.

3) Drizzle oil into the tomato mixture. Then stir in vinegar.

4) Toss pasta in tomato pesto mixture. If it seems dry, add 1/2 Cup of the reserved pasta cooking water. Taste for salt and pepper.

5) Stir in goat cheese and arugula or serve pasta on a bed of arugula with goat cheese crumbled on top.

Adapted from America's Test Kitchen 30 Minute Suppers.

This is about as simple as it gets for pasta salads. There’s barely any chopping to do which is rare.

One of my favorite pastas for salad.

If you’ve never used bowtie pasta for pasta salad, give it a shot. It’s climbing the ranks in my favorite pasta list. Not only is it fun, but the ridges grab hold of a lot of sauce or, in this case, sun-dried tomato goodness.

Of course, you can use any pasta for this though if you can’t find bowtie pasta. I’d recommend larger blocky pastas though. Don’t come crying to me if you try this with angel hair pasta and it sucks.

Strong flavors!

Making the Pesto

Besides boiling your pasta, the only thing you really need to make for this is the sun-dried tomato pesto. This is as simple as adding in all your sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and Parmesan cheese into a food processor and pulsing it until it’s a coarse paste. Then drizzle in your olive oil and pulse a few more times and stir in the vinegar.

But Nick. I don’t have a food processor!

Do not fret. You have some options. You could try it with a blender although it might be rough going. But honestly you can also just finely chop all your ingredients and then mix together everything in a bowl. Your final product might be a bit chunkier than mine, but it’ll still be delicious in the final pasta salad.

A kind of pesto I guess...

The Others

There’s two key ingredients to this recipe that really make it pop. First, goat cheese. When that gets folded into the pasta it gives it a creamy, tangy flavor. I liked folding it in, but you could also kind of crumble it on the finished product if you wanted.

Second, and maybe more important, is nice fresh arugula. The peppery taste of it goes great with the goat cheese and tomatoes. The arugula is maybe my favorite part of the dish, but don’t tell the goat cheese I said that.

Creamy and peppery.

Once your pasta is boiled, just drain it and reserve some of the cooking liquid. Toss it immediately with the sun-dried tomato pesto. If it seems a bit dry, add in 1/2 Cup of the cooking water. After everything is well-combined you can fold in your goat cheese also if you’re doing that.

This smelled amazing.

Making it Pretty

I elected to not make mine very pretty. I just kind of mixed everything together because I was planning on taking it for lunch and stuff like that and it was just easier.

If you wanted to make this pretty though, you could serve the pasta on a bed of arugula with the goat cheese crumbled on top.

For my version, I chose function over form I guess.

You could probably make this prettier...

Start to finish this dish is literally done in the amount of time it takes to boil pasta. It’s fast and tasty and keeps for days.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the last summer salad of the week which is actually based off of last week’s poll winner!

Couple that with the cold weather and all signs point to pasta carbonara for me. It’s one of my favorite ways to prepare pasta. Instead of a tomato or cream sauce, pasta carbonara is basically just eggs that are stirred into cooked pasta. The eggs cook slowly and make a kind of creamy and delicious sauce.

To change up the normal, I used bowtie pasta for this and added some crispy bacon and sauteed leeks for even more flavor.

A kind of carbonara

There’s really nothing fancy about this dish and you could even strip away a lot of the ingredients I use if you wanted to simplify it even more. You could ditch the bacon and leeks and have a much more traditional pasta. A little cheese grated on top with maybe some chopped parsley and you’d still be in good shape.

Bowtie Pasta Carbonara with Bacon and Leeks

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound bowtie pasta
4 strips bacon, diced
1 leek, diced
1/2 Teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 eggs, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper
Grated Parmesan
Chopped parsley

Directions:

1) Get water boiling for pasta. Salt it with 1 TBSP. salt per gallon of water. Cook pasta according to package.

2) Dice bacon and add to pan over medium heat. Cook until it's nice and crispy.

3) Dice leek making sure to rinse well to remove dirt.

4) Prep other ingredients for the dish.

5) Remove crispy bacon from pan. Add leeks to pan with a drizzle of olive oil if the pan is very dry. Cook for a minute or two and add red pepper flakes and garlic. Cook for a minute to soften the veggies.

6) Add bacon back to pan. Drain pasta and stir cooked pasta in with leek and bacon mixture.

7) Drizzle in egg mixture and stir like crazy. Kill the heat on the pan. The heat from the pan and pasta should cook the eggs and thicken the dish.

8) Season with salt and pepper and serve with grated parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.

Making the dish

The good news about this dish is that it takes literally 30 minutes to make, start to finish.

To start, get a large pot of salted water boiling for the pasta. Bowtie pasta takes a bit longer to cook than spaghetti, so definitely get your water going at least.

I like to use a little bacon for this dish and trust me a little goes a long way. Just dice it up into pieces. I used four thick strips for a pound of pasta so it’s really not all that much once it’s in the finished dish.

A little bacon goes a long way

Throw that into a pan and let it start to brown. The crispier the better in my opinion!

Meanwhile, dice up a leek. The important thing to remember about leeks is that they tend to have a lot of dirt in between their layers so chop it in half horizontally and wash it under cold water. You can kind of peel apart the layers a bit to get it nice and clean. Then dice it up!

Pretty straightforward

I like to get everything ready for this recipe because it all comes together really quickly.

These are all the things you’ll need. The chopped parsley is just for finishing the dish.

All you need.

When your bacon is crispy, move it onto a paper towel and then add your leeks to the rendered bacon fat. Oh yea… that’s flavor. You shouldn’t need any additional oil, but if it looks really dry, add a tablespoon of olive oil. I also added a pinch of red pepper flakes just to give it some heat.

After the leeks cook for a minute or two, add your garlic also. You don’t want to completely caramelize these guys, just cook them down a bit until they’re soft.

Just a few minutes

Meanwhile, make sure to have your eggs ready – just lightly beat them!

Sauce of sorts

Once your leeks are cooked, add your bacon back to that pan and stir it all together.

When your pasta is done, drain it and then add the pasta back to the pan over low heat. Now for the fun part. Add your leek/bacon mixture to the pasta and mix everything together.

Then drizzle in your beaten eggs and stir like a banshee! Don’t let the eggs clump together too much or you’ll end up with scrambled egg pasta – not as tasty. The key is to make sure you work quickly after you drain the pasta so it’s still very hot.

This is what you’re going for:

Stir stir stir!

After you add in all your eggs, stir it for a minute to make sure the eggs are cooked all the way and then taste for salt and pepper. The bacon will add some saltiness, but you’ll probably want to hit it with a good pinch of both.

Serve it right away! It’s best with grated Parm cheese and chopped parsley.

Parsley and Parmesan are good things

The dish is actually a lot lighter than it looks. Remember that there is no cream or anything in the dish (although you could add some if you wanted), that’s just from the eggs.

Yummy bite.

This is such a great dish and one that I think anyone can master. It’s perfect for a cold winter night when you don’t have a lot of time.

Give it a shot and get on the carbonara train.