Jamie Oliver's Best Pasta Salad

"One of my favorite Naked Chef recipes. I make this often. I just love the trip of boiling up the garlic cloves with the pasta, and then just squeezing them out of their skins and adding them mashed to the dressing."
 
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photo by The 500 Chef photo by The 500 Chef
photo by The 500 Chef
photo by juliea333 photo by juliea333
photo by dianegrapegrower photo by dianegrapegrower
Ready In:
20mins
Ingredients:
12
Serves:
6
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ingredients

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directions

  • Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.
  • Throw in the pasta and garlic and simmer for about 5 minutes or until al dente, and drain.
  • Put the garlic to one side for the dressing.
  • Put the pasta in a bowl.
  • Chop the tomatoes, olives, chives, basil and cucumber into pieces about half the size of the pasta and add to the bowl.
  • Squash the garlic cloves out of their skins and pound in a pestle and mortar.
  • Add the vinegar, oil and seasoning.
  • Drizzle this over the salad, adding a little more seasoning to taste.

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Reviews

  1. A great light and fresh tasting pasta salad. It's great to find one that doesn't contain mayo for a change. I did add an extra clove of fresh crushed garlic to the dressing as the boiled garlic didn't have much flavour left in it. I used chopped seeded tomato instead of the cherry tomatoes as it was all I had and added a little bit of chopped yellow capsicum too. I was serving a very fussy eater who loved it and came back for more the next day! A keeper recipe.
     
  2. This is a great salad I needed a salad I could make ahead so when company comes I don't have so much to do at the last minute. This salad exceeded my expectations! It is simple, elegant, tasty, quick, and can be made in advance. I served this salad cold and I added some fresh broccoli florets. I used grape tomatoes cut in half and left out the yellow tomatoes.
     
  3. This has to be the best pasta salad I've ever tasted and how a pasta salad is meant to be made. The addition of the garlic is truly inspired and it is so subtle but lifts the recipe to a another level. It tastes so fresh and alive in your mouth, no prepacked ingredients just beautiful fresh produce you can't go wrong. Use your best extra virgin olive oil for this one. Thanks Mirj, this is now my favourite salad.
     
  4. I loved this pasta salad. I'm used to heavy, thick italian dressings on pasta salad, so this was light and delicious. I've only made it once, and think the 7 tbs of extra virgin olive oil might be a little too much. So next time i'll cut that back a little. I would suggest starting out with 5-6, then tasting as you go. But overall, looked beautiful, deliciously light. I added fresh broccoli and fresh yellow squash instead of olives and cucumbers.<br/><br/>In my opinion, the fresh garlic and basil is key!
     
  5. I loved this salad! I doubled the garlic, left out the cucumber and olives, and added colored capsicum and baby mozzarella. Yum - thanks Mirj!!
     
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Tweaks

  1. I added chopped cooked Italian sausage to the salad, and small cauliflower florets in with the pasta for the the last 5 minutes of boiling. If you boil the garlic in the first 5 minutes (my rotini took 10 total), you can smush it and make the dressing while the pasta finishes cooking. The garlic cloves float so they're easy to pull out!
     
  2. I used half bow tie pasta and half cheese tortellini and it was perfect. I minced the cloves of garlic for boiling the pasta and then I added it to the dressing.
     
  3. I loved this pasta salad. I'm used to heavy, thick italian dressings on pasta salad, so this was light and delicious. I've only made it once, and think the 7 tbs of extra virgin olive oil might be a little too much. So next time i'll cut that back a little. I would suggest starting out with 5-6, then tasting as you go. But overall, looked beautiful, deliciously light. I added fresh broccoli and fresh yellow squash instead of olives and cucumbers.<br/><br/>In my opinion, the fresh garlic and basil is key!
     

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p><strong><span style=color: #ff0000;>Come and visit me on my blog:&nbsp; </span></strong></p> <p><a href=http://www.miriyummy.wordpress.com><strong><span style=color: #ff0000;>www.miriyummy.wordpress.com</span></strong></a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>October 2011: It's been 10 years since I came into Zaar one day at the recommendation of someone on another website. If you ask my husband (or my coworkers), I haven't logged out since! <br /><br /><a href=http://www.TickerFactory.com/><br /><img src=http://tickers.TickerFactory.com/ezt/d/4;15;0/st/20011021/e/I Joined Zaar%21/dt/6/k/f656/event.png border=0 alt= /></a> <br /><br />So what's happened in the ten years since I became addicted to Zaar? Well, I've been happily married, happily divorced, and happily married once again. (Wanna see wedding pictures? 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