We had this warm pasta salad last weekend and it was just the thing for a spring supper, tossed with tangy olives and feta cheese, and snap-tender broccoli. We'd like to make it again this weekend and add some roasted chicken to make it a true one-dish meal.
Broccoli and Feta Pasta Salad
Serves 41 pound mixed tri-color pasta
1 medium head broccoli, chopped into florets
8 ounces feta cheese
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
Cook the pasta and drain. Cook the broccoli in a heavy frying pan with a little olive oil over medium heat until crisp-tender - 5 to 7 minutes. Toss with cooked pasta and olives.
Crumble the feta cheese into the pasta. Whisk the oil, vinegar, and salt and pepper and toss with the pasta.
(Image: Faith Durand)
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Comments (16)
This looks and sounds delicious. Perhaps blanching the broccoli florets in the pasta water before cooking the pasta might give it a brighter green color and allow you to sauté it for a shorter time, while cooking it evenly.
Hooray, I have all of these ingredients on hand and was just fretting over what to make for dinner...
Faith, you must have some sort of psychic connection with my fridge as this is the third time you've posted a recipe calling for ingredients I've got on hand....and oddly enough, ingredients I hadn't fully integrated into a cooking plan yet.
Verdict: delicious. I used about 3 Tbsp. olive tapenade leftover from the weekend instead of chopping my own olives, and tossed it with gemelli. It was so tasty; my sweetheart rated it 10 out of 10 and asked that it be added to our regular dinner rotation. Thanks again for the inspiration!
Michelle - you have to thank my mother for this one! We made it at her house last week - full credit where credit is due. :-)
I made this last night with (horrors) frozen broccoli, added some chopped up roasted red peppers from a jar, and used basalmic instead of red wine vineagar. SOOO yummy. This was delicous warm but I think would be equally good after a good chill in the fridge. I wouldn't know though, because we had no leftovers ;)
This may be a blasphemous question but can I use another cheese besides feta? Not a big fan of feta but want to make this dish. What would be a good substitute?
a goat cheese would be good.
i'm going to make this next week, sounds delicious!
My favorite way to cook broccoli (and I use frozen florets from Trader Joes cause they're delicious) is to spray them with a tad of olive oil and then put them under the broiler until chared. They are so tasty that way! I made a variation of this salad with ingredients on hand - adding thinly sliced onions, fresh tomatoes, tortellini (didn't have tri-color pasta) and used lemon juice instead of red wine vineager. Took it to the park! yum.
Made it. Loved it. It was great warm. It was great cold. It was better than CATS. I will make it again and again....
I made it this weekend, but took Leerdamer cheese cubes instead of Feta. It was delicious, and easy to prepare.
oh man, this is so so so good. i only recently started eating cheese (i was vegan for a long time) and had never had feta before. now i've made this dish twice in one week. the first time i did a half batch of the exact recipe above, and just now i made a full batch subbing in roasted red pepper for olives, adding 3 julienned carrots to the salad to help me reach my veggie quota, and using balsamic in the dressing instead of red wine vinegar, per d in dc's recommendation. amazing.
i also added grilled vegetarian chicken (quorn brand) and it's amazing too. if you are vegetarian or want to make this dish for someone who is, i can wholeheartedly recommend those fake chicken things.
thank you for this dish!
Could this also be done with couscous instead?
The Broccoli and Feta Pasta Salad is awesome! I make it with a few additions that taste great in it: cucumbers, carrots, and when I'm in the mood, green peppers taste wonderful in it too. :)
I make this sometimes but I use balsamic. Will try wine vinegar. I also throw in some carmelized onions and they really add to it.