Some nights, no matter how hard you plan, dinner just does not work out.
It’s a good idea to have a list of quick and easy meals you can whip together for rough evenings, and Emergency Pantry Pasta Salad is a good recipe to add to the arsenal.
It’s basically pasta salad that you make with ingredients from your pantry. Genius, right?
There are two things that are key to making this into a tasty meal and just some starchy boxed junk from the dusty shelf.
One, add protein. Canned beans, tuna, salmon, or chicken. PROTEIN, people.
And two, keep this secret ingredient on hand to liven it up and add tons of flavor:
Roasted red bell peppers in the jar. Get them in oil if you can.
If you keep your eye out, you can find it for a dollar or two per jar. They are lively, tasty little bites and add color. They’ll dress those noodles right up, and make your meal look intentional, not cobbled together.
And now, the recipe.
1 box (14-16 oz.) bowtie/farfalle pasta, cooked and drained.
1 can black olives, drained (14 oz, not the little skimpy short cans). Cut them in half so there will be a piece in every bite.
1-2 can cannelini, navy, or other white beans, depending on how hearty you want the salad, drained. Save the bean juice.
1/2 – 1 jar roasted red bell peppers, drained, liquid reserved, and chopped.
1/2 chopped red onion, or green onions, or whatever kind you have in your pantry. Yellow onions can be a bit harsh, but you can cook it a tiny bit to soften the bite.
Other assorted flotsam and jetsam that needs to be eaten up. Got some lettuce in the fridge? Tomatoes? Last night’s green beans? Add it in. I like this pasta salad mixed half and half with lettuce or spinach salad mix.
Toss it all together in a big bowl and chill. Actually, if you plan right, you can cook the noodles, drain, then mix the salad in the same pot.
Add dressing when you’re ready to serve.
Dressing? You’re out of dressing? No worries, my friend.
Make a quick vinaigrette. Fill the bell pepper jar up about 1/4 full with red wine vinegar. Add about a quarter jar’s worth of olive oil, or the reserved bell pepper oil. Add about another 1/4′s worth of bean juice, to thicken it and for mouth feel. The jar should be about 3/4 full. Add a pinch of tarragon or other favorite herb, some garlic powder, some salt and pepper.
Tighten the lid on and shake shake shake!
Taste the dressing and adjust seasonings to suit your palate. Add more oil if you find it too tangy, or more vinegar if you like it lively. A squirt of brown mustard (not yellow American mustard, the spicy brown stuff) might be nice, if you’re into that sort of thing. Mess around a bit and make it your own.
Yummy!
Keeping a meal’s worth of pantry staples on hand works for me! For more WFMW, check out We Are THAT Family!
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
That actually sounds really good!
Wow–this sounds like a very yummy recipe! I bet it would be great with Tuna!
My emergency meal has always been spaghetti–but that get old–fast!
Also, those peppers in a jar look amazing!
Stumbling/tweeting–I know others will love this recipe too!
The best thing I ever learned from Rachel Ray is how awesome roasted red peppers are.
I, too, am a HUGE fan of red peppers – toasted, roasted or raw. They NEVER last in our household though, because Husband Dear ALWAYS finds them and eats them straight out of the jar!
Thanks for the idea. I make a pasta salad similar to this, but rarely make it any more because the kids did not like it when they were little. (DD still does not like most salad dressings.) But like with other foods, they have expanded their likes as they grew older (they are 20 and 18.)
So I ought to give pasta salad another try.
Another fave pasta salad is bowties, white beans or grilled chicken, canned mandarin oranges, fresh baby spinach, and red onions. SO GOOD!
I wish I could whip up little dishes like that for my brood, but I have super picky eaters. None of them like onions, olives or red peppers- any peppers for that matter. None of them like cold pasta. One likes pasta with meat sauce, one like pasta with red sauce and no meat, and one likes pasta with no sauce, just salt/pepper/parm cheese. I am a short order cook around here. I did it to myslef. As my kids were growing up I dind’t make them eat things if they didn’t like them or didn’t want to eat it. So now I have picky eaters. I wish I had kids who loved anything I made. But I am also a picky eater too. I probably projected my narrow view of food onto them.
dollar tree sells roasted red peppers in the jar.
Sounds great! We make this pasta salad a lot; the protein comes from sunflower seeds and nutritional yeast flakes. I just read that sunflower seeds are more nutritious than I’d realized, with all kinds of trace minerals and good stuff.
I make homemade spaghettios, and nutritional yeast flakes are my secret ingredient. Gives it a slight cheesy flavor that’s not really cheese, just like the canned stuff, LOL!