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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 May 9th 2007 at 10:09am
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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 May 9th 2007 at 11:06am
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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 May 9th 2007 at 11:28am
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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 May 9th 2007 at 5:35pm
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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 May 10th 2007 at 6:12am
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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 May 10th 2007 at 7:02am
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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 May 11th 2007 at 8:58am
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a goat cheese would be good.

posted by alithea on May 11th 2007 at 9:30am
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i'm going to make this next week, sounds delicious!

posted by universal mod on May 11th 2007 at 11:28am
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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 May 12th 2007 at 12:26pm
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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 May 12th 2007 at 6:01pm
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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 May 13th 2007 at 9:41pm
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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 May 20th 2007 at 12:21pm
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Could this also be done with couscous instead?

posted by lisaofRI on June 1st 2008 at 3:11am
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