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Recipe: Broccoli and Feta Pasta Salad

BroccoliSalad.jpgWe 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 4

1 pound mixed tri-color pasta
1 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 - 5-7 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 Hopler)

Comments (14)

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.

posted by Terry B on 2007-05-09 15:09:05
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Hooray, I have all of these ingredients on hand and was just fretting over what to make for dinner...

posted by chowbella on 2007-05-09 16:06:47
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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.

posted by Michelle of Montreal on 2007-05-09 16:28:27
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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!

posted by chowbella on 2007-05-09 22:35:18
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Michelle - you have to thank my mother for this one! We made it at her house last week - full credit where credit is due. :-)

posted by faith on 2007-05-10 11:12:52
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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 ;)

posted by d in dc on 2007-05-10 12:02:27
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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?

posted by anne on 2007-05-11 13:58:43
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a goat cheese would be good.

posted by alithea on 2007-05-11 14:30:46
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i'm going to make this next week, sounds delicious!

posted by universal mod on 2007-05-11 16:28:07
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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.

posted by mmmmmjenny on 2007-05-12 17:26:16
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Made it. Loved it. It was great warm. It was great cold. It was better than CATS. I will make it again and again....

posted by Michelle of Montreal on 2007-05-12 23:01:33
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I made it this weekend, but took Leerdamer cheese cubes instead of Feta. It was delicious, and easy to prepare.

posted by Jany on 2007-05-14 02:41:14
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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!

posted by muro.lamere on 2007-05-20 17:21:07
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Could this also be done with couscous instead?

posted by lisaofRI on 2008-06-01 08:11:06
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