52 New Recipes | Grilled Chicken Pesto Pasta Salad
That's kind of a mouthful. 😉
This is another recipe from my ATK Quick Family Cookbook. It's a pasta salad dressed with homemade pesto, with tomatoes, arugula, and grilled chicken.
The general vote on this one from my family and me is that it was sort of medium.
Like, we ate it and it was fine, but none of us were like, "Ooh! This is really good! We should have this all the time."
So, I probably won't make this one again.
Oh, and I thought the amount of pasta was kind of whoa. I used elbow macaroni and weighed out a pound, and when it cooked up, it was a LOT.
I didn't use all of it, and I feel like if I had, the flavor would have been even more meh because the dressing would be further spread out.
Anyway! You win some, you lose some.
Even when I hit recipes that are sort of duds, I'm still happy I'm doing this project because I have found a lot of recipes that are keepers.
How about you?
Did you try a new recipe this week? I hope it was better than "meh". 😉
Haha it is quite a mouthful. I'm sorry to hear that it got a medium rating. But I'm sure it still tastes great. At least the food in the photo looks super yummy!
I like eating noodles too, but it's mostly rice or wheat Asian noodles. Oh and I like instant noodles too >_<
I made crockpot stuffed bell peppers and they were very meh. I think stuffed peppers really do better in the oven...I will likely pack the leftovers for my lunches but I will not likely make them again...
That overwhelming feeling of pasta was probably due to elbow vs. rotini. Rotini is longer and bigger. 2 oz. of that is 2/3 cup. Elbows are thinner and shorter. 2 oz. of that is 1/2 cup. So you're getting a ton more elbow macaroni than you would rotini 🙂
Either way, if the flavor was meh, at least you have some elbow macaroni left over for easy lunch! 🙂
The weird thing is...I weighed it! So I'm not sure what to make of that.
To my mind, many pasta salads and numerous pastas with toppings, taste better without the pasta. For example, my fave cauliflower dish started life as pasta with cauliflower.
You know, I think I'd agree with that, at least in this case. Chicken, tomatoes, arugula, cheese, and pesto would be lovely sans pasta.
Say that salad's name five times fast.
My husband isn't fond of pasta, so he would agree with WilliamB.
I tried a chicken curry dish, actually on the weekend, so it sort of is last week's new dish and this week's new dish, both. I thought it was good, my husband gave it a thumbs down. As usual! I'm starting to get discouraged. He's gotten so that the only way he really wants to eat chicken is fried, and then only one or two pieces of it, and not very often. But I love chicken.
Sorry about the pasta salad! A co-worker makes one with cherry tomatoes, sliced black olives, Italian dressing, feta, and a lot of minced fresh garlic, which he brings to work for potlucks. Although it gives us garlic breath, we always eat it up. It is NOT for garlic haters.
I'm thinking, for my next trick, I might try enchiladas, which I've never made, just like curry. This new recipe series makes me realize I really need to expand my menu. My husband likes beef tacos very well, so enchiladas might be good. They will not be chicken enchiladas, though. 🙂
This is one we make in the summer without a recipe so we add as much pesto as seems right. I don't think I'd use elbow pasta-- we generally use rotini for pesto pasta salads. I think the trick to making it amazing instead of ok is to make sure it's got lots of fresh grated Parmesan or Romano and to serve it on a hot summer day when everyone is craving salt (also use fresh from the garden tomatoes). I also like a little diced Vidalia onion in it, but the children are less enthusiastic about that addition.
I added more salt to my leftover bowl yesterday, and that did make a difference. So you must be right!
I feel like pasta salad is very hard to get right. Too much dressing or too little and they're really not okay. I miss one I used to make with whole wheat pasta, spinach, toasted walnuts, red onion, and feta. It had a red wine vinaigrette dressing. Man, that was good. Of course, now most of the family doesn't really eat pasta, so it's not worth making.
I was planning on making a lamb curry tonight--which isn't new to me, but I haven't made it in so many years it may as well be--but then my husband brought home a GIANT log of ground beef from the cash and carry store, so instead I made lots of hamburger patties, taco meat, and meat loaf to freeze. I decided after dealing with all that meat, I really didn't feel like messing around with the lamb, so we're going to have some of the hamburger patties tonight. Plus, this way, I can get my husband to grill them, which is way better than frying them on the stove with all the accompanying grease AND that's one less pan I have to fuss with right before dinner. Or wash after. Win.
Yes! Burgers are better on the grill for a multitude of reasons.
I love pasta salad and make many versions throughout the summer, depending on what's fresh and available. But I find that the finished salad needs to sit in the frig to soak up the dressing and any other seasoning for a few hours to taste really flavorful before serving.
Kristin, have you ever checked out the Canadian Living website? They are known for their tasty recipes here. A pasta salad I got from them years ago was a greek pasta salad. Throw in cooked fusilli or orzo (roughly enough to fill the bottom of your salad bowl, cooked), chopped red onion (the smaller the better), minced garlic, chopped grape tomatoes, chopped cucumber, crumbled feta, oregano, 3-4 tbsps of olive oil and 1 tbsp of vinegar (and salt and pepper to taste...but usually the feta is salty enough) Lately I've also started cooking chopped up mushrooms in the frying pan and throwing those in too. Mix it all up and it's a perfect summer dish. It's very yummy as leftovers too. And as mentioned above, you WILL have garlic breath but it's sooooo worth it! It's also yummy with quinoa instead of the pasta.
I'm sorry Kristen, not Kristin.
I made everything chicken using everything bagel seasoning. I liked it enough to make it again, but the husband didn't care for it, and my 12 year old chose to eat cereal. Link to where I found the recipe https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/everything-chicken/
try it with sun dried tomatoes in oil and use the oil and bow tie pasta or tortellini- should be fabulous (better the next day)- we make it all the time in the summer
I love the meh dinners.
I made pasta sauce with onion, fennel, and tomatoes tonight. It's not really a new recipe as I made it last year when we got fennel in our vegetable share, but with a five-year-old the passing of a whole year means for her it was a new recipe. Luckily she loved it. My six-year-old only eats pasta with butter and cheese.
I agree that it probably is partly due to the different types of pasta. Elbow is more compact and fusilli/rotini has more surface area for the dressing to stick to. I would probably increase the dressing a bit with the pasta change. Also a little extra salt almost always gives it that extra edge. That's almost always my easiest fix. Also, a little extra liquid (the oil, pasta water, vinegar, whatever you are using in that particular recipe) helps more often than not.