How to Make Pasta salad _ Quick Appetizers _ KitchenNotesFromNancy

Hey y'all and welcome back to my kitchen with New Year's Eve coming up .

Um I know some of y'all probably have a few parties to go to .

So today and for the next couple of days , I wanna share with you some quick and easy recipes that can serve as appetizers for New Year's Eve or even your Super bowl , super bowl parties .

So if you wanna learn how to make some fast , easy but delicious recipes , stay tuned .

OK ?

Y'all .

It is Christmas morning and um we're going over to some of our friend's house later .

Um and that's where we're gonna have dinner .

Um And so I am taking pasta salad um as my dish .

So I just figured I would show y'all um my quick recipe for pasta salad is super , super simple .

Um And we're gonna get right to it .

Ok .

First we're gonna start by cooking the pasta .

Um So I'm just gonna salt the water like I showed you in my macaroni recipe .

It's much easier to salt the water than it is to try to go back and salt the pasta later .

Then I'm gonna take about two tablespoons of vegetable oil .

And put in there .

Um It just helps um stop , it just helps to prevent the noodles from basically sticking together .

And since this is already at a rolling boil , I'm gonna go ahead and dump my tricolour rotini .

It's um a 12 ounce container and I'm gonna do the whole um container .

So I'm just gonna put that over in there and give it a quick stir .

Now this is gonna come back to a boil and y'all don't pay this anymore .

This is just I got some turkey necks on over here um , to go with the rest of our dinner and I'm gonna use uh some of the um broth off of those turkey necks to go in my dressing .

Um , so I'm just gonna bring this back up to a boil and then once they're done , we'll take them out .

Those will cook for about eight minutes or so .

Um , until they're uh al dente .

And so while these are cooking , we're gonna go over to the other counter and cut up our tomatoes and bell pepper .

Alright .

So while the pasta's cooking , I've washed the tomatoes and bell pepper .

I'm gonna go ahead and chop these up .

Um , now I have a chopper but I don't like it to get mushy .

So when I'm making pasta salad , I just do it by hand .

Um , this pasta salad is super quick .

Uh super easy .

I'm kind of glad people like it .

It makes my life a lot easier sometimes when I'm taking things over uh to my friend's house .

Um So what I do with these once I get them cut in little strips , I just take them and give them a little bitty chop and make them little bitty r and nothing , nothing spectacular .

So I'm gonna finish cutting these up and then we'll chop up the tomatoes .

Alright .

So the bell pepper is chopped up and so it's now it's time to start doing the cherry tomatoes and the cut that I do on these are really simple .

I just go across them one time and then I go down the middle .

So I just put them um I cut them in quarters .

Nothing super fancy .

Um I used to use a whole tomato but then I found it was just easier to cut up the cherry tomatoes .

When I use the whole tomato , the juice from it would um tend to run out and , and I noticed that with these uh cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes , I didn't have that issue .

So I'm gonna get all of these cut up and then by then it should be time to drain our pasta .

And so real quick , this one is kind of big .

So I just cut it in threes so you know , just cut it to your sides preference .

So I'm gonna keep doing this and by then my pasta should be ready to take out and drain .

So it's been about eight minutes .

So it's time to drink the pasta .

So I'm just gonna dump that over in there and let it drain .

And I'm actually just gonna let it sit here in the sink while I um finish cutting up the um tomatoes .

I'm gonna run a little cold water over it to stop the cooking process .

So just a little bit and it just kind of stops , it slows down that cooking process and cools that pasta down .

Fuck .

And this step isn't necessary .

I just do it so that the pasta doesn't get overly done and then I just let that water run out of there .

OK ?

So the veggies are chopped up .

Um The pasta is still cooling .

Uh I'm going to now take some uh ham and dice it up .

Uh You can use any type of meat um that you would like uh you know , turkey or chicken or whatever .

So if this was um going home to my actual family , I would take the um I would not be using ham .

So if it was going to my , to my family , I wouldn't use ham .

I would be using turkey because most of the people in my family don't eat ham .

So , so I'm gonna get this um diced up and then we'll get ready to assemble the final product .

OK ?

So the ham is diced up .

So we're going to jump right into the assembly process .

So I have my aluminum pan and I'm going to take that pasta and just dump it in .

All right .

So now that the pasta is in , I'm gonna go ahead and grab some of that ham .

Then the tomatoes and the green onion .

I mean , in the green Bell pepper , my mind was on onion because I was gonna tell y'all , I don't put onion in my pasta salad .

I know a lot of people do because I don't like onions .

I don't put olives in my pasta salad because I don't like olives .

Um , and I'm not going to make a dish that I'm not going to eat .

And so that's partly why my pasta salad is so simple .

Uh I'm just gonna go ahead and dump all the meat in here cause I'm not gonna do anything else with it .

So you might as well since I've already chopped it out love .

Um , yeah , I'm not going to make a dish that I'm not gonna eat .

So I only put things in it that I eat .

Um , I use the color rotini cause I like it .

It makes it pretty , um , if you want to add more color , of course you can use red bell pepper , uh , green bell pepper , I mean yellow bell pepper , but I don't , um , use red bell pepper , uh , because the tomatoes are in there .

So that gives me color on that part .

Um , now I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna Sprinkle sometimes I add cheese sometimes I don't today is one of those days where I am gonna add a little bit of cheese .

Um , so I'm gonna Sprinkle just about a handful of cheese and this is just the mild cheddar cheese , same cheese I used on top of my macaroni .

So toss that cheese in there and then the finishing part .

Uh , there are people who season their , um , pasta salad now because I use this zesty Italian dressing .

Um , I don't really season mine if anything , I might put just a little bit of onion powder in it because , um , like I said , a lot of people like onion but because I don't eat raw onion .

Um , I'm not , I don't put it in but I may put just a little bit of that in here .

Um , but typically I just go straight , um , straight Italian dressing .

So this recipe is super , super simple .

Um , it's good for a day like today where , you know , you just want something a little bit lighter while you wait for Christmas dinner .

Um , it's good for the fourth of July .

It's good for , I mean , pasta salad is good any time you want to eat it .

My family eats it a lot .

We eat it for almost every occasion .

Um , if there's a birthday party or something like that .

So it is one of those dishes that appears at my house all the time .

Um , so let me , I should have opened this before .

Um , I got on camera .

But hey .

Oh , well .

So I've shaken it up and I just put a generous amount of the Italian dressing on here .

So this is a 24 ounce bottle .

So that's probably about 12 ounces and then I just stir it to kind of see , um , how saturated .

Now , there are other people who use other types of dresses .

I just like the taste of the zesty Italian .

So that's what I use .

The thing about pasta salad .

You can dress it up any way you want .

You can put , um , olives in it .

You can put peppers in it .

I mean , like , uh , jalapeno peppers in it .

You can use regular rotini .

You can use corkscrew pasta , you can use spaghetti .

I've seen people do , um , spaghetti pasta salad .

So it's just all in to what , you know , your taste level and what your preference is .

I'm gonna reach over real quick to my spice rack and grab , um , just a little black pepper and then a little onion powder .

So I'm gonna do a few sprinkles of black pepper and , um , you again , you're not gonna see me using salt .

That Zesty Italian dressing is salty enough .

That's just a little onion powder .

They help bump up the flavor in it a little bit and I'm gonna mix this end and y'all just that fast .

It's done .

Literally , you can cook , you can make this in 15 minutes and that includes the time it takes to cook your pasta .

Um , so here we go .

There's my pasta salad and I am going to get this covered up and it'll be ready to go when it's time for us to leave .

Thank you again and see you next time .

Thank you for watching .

Until , uh , watching until the end of the video .

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Bye guys .