Roast vegetable pasta salad as the name suggests it is a salad but with pasta in it. Now that’s an excuse I can make midweek, as long as the dish has the word salad in it, I can squeeze it into my diet on a weekday. This salad is ultra-delicious, citrusy, has a big depth of flavour and very filling.
When I try and find for mid-week meal solutions, I always crave carbs but I love to add vegetables into it so that I can eat a nutritious bowl of healthy goodness. I trialled and developed this recipe just after Christmas, well you know what I am talking about, all those Christmas cakes, love cake, wine and functions definitely gets accumulated and come January I am ready to go back to healthy meals at least during the week, so I can lose the festive weight.
The best thing about this dish is that this becomes a weekday favourite in my household because I use whatever leftover vegetable from the week, cook it and marinade it, well its basically like making your own antipasto, to be honest, you can use this with almost anything but I stir in pasta to make it a complete meal if you want to add meat into it, you can do so as well. But I have left this pasta vegetarian.
What vegetables to use for vegetable pasta salad
Like I said before any vegetable you find in your fridge at the end of the week can be used. I don’t suggest using potato, but if you really want to then you can use it, I just like to keep my pasta salad loaded with one carb and that’s pasta.
Marinade for vegetable pasta salad
This marinade is a simple marinade or dressing requires pantry stable ingredients and just add it into a jar and shake. This marinade is not only healthy but also free of nasty preservatives that are in store-bought dressings or marinades. The best thing part is, you can make this dressing in a big batch and store it in the fridge to use in any of your salads as a dressing. Well, that’s what I do, I eat a lot of salads during the week, having a salad dressing ready to go in the fridge saves you plenty of time.
How to serve marinated vegetable pasta salad
- Side dish- I also like to make this as a side dish when entertaining people
- Work lunch
- Main meal itself
How to store Roasted vegetable pasta salad?
Pasta tends to get dried and absorbs marinate quickly, its best to toss the salad ingredients together just before serving but if you have to store it for later then cover with cling wrap and store in the refrigerator. When using it again, if the pasta is dried up, add a bit more dressing or simply add 1 tbsp of water and give it a toss.
You can also check my other side dishes recipe here
Watch how to make roast vegetable pasta salad
Step by Step recipe how to make roast vegetable pasta salad
Roast vegetable pasta salad
Equipment
- Oven
Ingredients
Roast Vegetables
- 1 Zucchini Cut into large chucks
- 1 Red onion (large) Cut into large chucks
- 1 Red, green or yellow Bell pepper Cut into large chucks
- 2 tsp Mixed Herbs
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/4 tsp Black pepper
- 4 tbsp Oil Olive oil, Canola oil
Marinade
- 50 ml Olive oil
- 50 ml Lemon Juice squeezed
- 2 tsp Honey
- 1 Garlic Chopped
- 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp Wholegrain mustard
- Salt and pepper to taste
Pasta
- 100 g Cooked pasta (Fusilli or any other pasta)
Instructions
- Cook pasta as per the packet instructions and cool down
- Preheat oven to 250C ( conventional oven)
- In a medium bowl add all cut vegetables, marinade with salt, pepper, oil, and herbs
- Place the marinated vegetables on a flat oven tray and cook for 20-25 mins until well roasted and cooked
- When the vegetables are cooked and roasted, leave aside to cool down
- Pour the marinade into the cooled vegetables, leave aside for 30 mins until needed ( Reserve about 3 tbsp marinade aside to freshen the salad if using later)
- Just before serving, add the vegetables, pasta into a medium bowl and toss it together
- Serve straight away