Pasta salad with Salmon is one of my favourite summer salads. The salmon flavour is not overpowering, but is well balanced with the other ingredients.
There are a few 'tricks of the trade', or 'tricks of the mother' that I use with this salad. One of these is a bit of olive oil added either before or after cooling the pasta, and the other is to boil some of the onions with the pasta. The oil helps keep the pasta in this salad from absorbing all the mayo in the recipe, and boiling the onions softens both the flavour and texture of them.
Pasta Salad with Salmon.
approximately 2 hours, prep and chilling time
serves 4 as a side dish
4 to 6oz of pasta shapes, like shells or spirals, cooked
1/2 tablespoon of Olive Oil
1/2 lime or lemon
1/2 tsp to 1 tsp. Kosher salt
few cracks of pepper
1 can red salmon, drained, skinned and deboned
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup diced sweet pepper (any colour, but I prefer red)
1/4 cup shredded carrot
1/2 tsp. dill weed
3 tablespoons of mayonnaise or salad dressing (like Miracle Whip)
Cook pasta and onions in boiling water until the pasta is done to your liking. Strain through a fine sieve, so as not to lose your onions down the drain. Cool the pasta under cold running water.
Once the pasta is cool, transfer to it's serving bowl. Add the olive oil and squeeze the lime over the pasta, and toss well. Add in the peppers, carrots and salmon, salt and pepper. Mix in the mayonnaise and dill weed and stir well.
Chill the pasta salad in the fridge for at least an hour, stirring occasionally. If it looks like it is dry, add more mayonnaise or salad dressing.
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