PASTA SALAD 3 WAYS (Literally The Best Pasta Salads I've Ever Had)

Hey, what's up? Pasta salad is not very well respected, either as a pasta or as a salad, and that's nonsense, of course. With a little bit of care, anyone can make world-class tasting pasta salad. So today, I'm gonna show you how to be very good at making pasta salad. We're gonna make three different types, all of which are very well tested and taste very good. So to get some pasta cooking for this salad, I've got my three-quart saucepan, and into that, I'm gonna measure 2,000 grams, or roughly two quarts of water and 45 grams of salt. In my mind, step one to a great pasta salad requires that the pasta itself is well-seasoned with salt, and I found that 2.25% of salt to water is just the right ratio. Now, I'm gonna put this pot on the boil, and the first pasta salad I'm making is the classic creamy macaroni salad. This one was not easy to figure out, either. It's the most abused and least understood pasta salad, in my opinion, and after three tries, I'm finally very happy with the result. Once that water's at a full boil, in goes 225 grams, or a half pound, of elbow macaroni, and I'm gonna set a timer for 11 minutes. That's three minutes longer than the package instructions call for, and that's because in my testing, borderline overcooked pasta holds onto dressing and sauces much better than al dente. After 11 minutes, I'm gonna come back and give this macaroni a taste, and at this point, it should be the opposite of al dente. Very al dente, basically. So cook it to the point where it's very tender, but not falling apart. Now, I'm gonna drain off this pasta, but first, I'm gonna reserve a few scoops of pasta water to help me thin out the dressing for this salad in just a minute. Once that pasta's well drained off, I'm gonna hit it with 25 grams of white distilled vinegar and a little squeezer of olive oil. I'm gonna be doing this to all three salads in this video. The vinegar brings acidity that we need to keep these salads in balance, and that little bit of oil helps the noodles stay all slippy. Without that, the noodles would clump together, and that would lead to torn up, frumpy pasta salad that is not pro. Next, I'm gonna flip the noodles into a mixing bowl to cool them off. I want these back to about room temperature before any dressings go in, and 20 minutes later, this macaroni has cooled off, and now into this bowl goes 30 grams of finely minced shallots that I've rinsed under cold water after cutting them, and smaller is better on these shallots, by the way, and if you don't have a shallot, try red onion, that will work as well. Next in, 60 grams of finely chopped celery. Again, chop these as small as you can get them. I really like the texture of raw celery, but too large a chunk, and all of a sudden, it's punishing and fibrous, so cut it small. Behind that goes 30 grams of thinly sliced scallions, 100 grams of frozen peas. Yes, this is totally Hoosier, but at the end of the day, it's essential to a quality Mac salad. Next is 100 grams of crispy chopped bacon. To get this crispy, I laid out three quarters of a pound of thinly sliced bacon on a wire rack, and then a sheet tray, and then loaded into a 350F or 176C oven to render that fat and fry it up for about 30 minutes. Once the bacon is rendered and dark and all crisped up like this, it's ready to come out and cool down. If we did our job right, that bacon should be stiff and crisp like this. That looks perfect. From there, I'm gonna run my knife through it to chop it into little bacon bit size stuff, and that looks great, and it tastes very good. 100 grams of that goes into the salad. Now, for the salad dressing, I made this little Miracle Whip ranch dressing hybrid situation that is super creamy and tangy, and honestly would be good on top of just about any food. So to make this into a high side container goes one large egg, 50 grams of sour cream, 25 grams of Dijon mustard, 15 grams of sugar, 10 grams of lemon juice, five grams of Worcestershire, and five grams of salt. My immersion blender goes in, and now I'm gonna spin up this base. Oh, yes, and a half clove of garlic goes in there as well. Forgot about that. Now, everything's gonna get spun up to combine, and from there, I'm gonna stream in 300 grams of neutral oil. I'm using light colored olive oil in this case. Extra virgin is not for mayonnaise. It gets too bitter. Once that oil is fully streamed in and everything is spun up till it's light, emulsified, and creamy looking, we're good to go. Back to the salad. Once we got a healthy few dollops of that sauce in the bowl, now I'm gonna add a splash of that pasta water. The dressing here is pretty thick, and the water helps evenly distribute it throughout this pasta salad, and it helps the noodles absorb more dressing. And I wanna be clear, this salad should have a lot of dressing, but we don't want it swimming in lightly sweetened mayonnaise, essentially. That is no one's dream. So tasting as we go is gonna be the best way to know when we're in that sweet spot. Personally, I think this needs a little bit more sauce. I'm probably closer to 300 grams of this sauce in the bowl now total. That's most of what we made. Now I'm gonna add five grams of chopped fresh dill, then about 20 to 30 cranks worth of black pepper, and then I'm gonna add a little bit more salt to make everything pop. That last little bit's gonna be up to you, but keep in mind we're serving this salad at a cooler temp, and cold food needs more salt to taste right. I'm gonna give this salad one more stir up to combine, and then to prove that this salad is worthy of your respect, I'm gonna plate it up as if it were a fancy pasta or a proper restaurant-style salad. We're gonna garnish this with some more fresh dill, a few grinds of cracked black pep, and a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. This is a grownup's macaroni salad, you guys. You can eat it by the pool, eat it by the grill, whatever you want. Let's taste this thing. Mm, it's familiar, elevated, it's creamy, it's kind of salty, lots of interesting textures. I didn't think it could be done. Creamy pasta salad has never been something that I've liked. It's always been kind of dumpy, kind of gross. This tastes really good. Next pasta salad. To get started again, in goes 2,000 grams of water and 45 grams of salt. That's gonna go on the boil, and while that comes up to temp, I think this is a good time to thank ButcherBox for sponsoring this video. ButcherBox delivers high-quality, meticulously-sourced meat and seafood right to your door. The beef is 100% grass-fed, the chicken organic, free-range, and all the seafood is wild-caught sustainably. Personally, I find that when I eat properly-sourced meat and seafood that's super nutrient-dense, I tend to eat less and feel better, probably because of omega-3s, you guys. Grass-fed meat's got a bunch of those in there, and scientists say that those are very good for your bod. And oh yeah, the box I just got came with two free lobster tails and two free ribeyes. What? Did you just say? Yes, right now when you click the link in my description and buy your first box, ButcherBox will send you two free lobster tails and two free 100% grass-fed ribeyes as a thank you. When you click the link in my description, you'll get your choice of five boxes. Four curated ones, I like the beef and chicken personally, that's what I got. Or you can go for a custom box, that way you only get exactly what you like. Delivery is free, you can cancel any time, and there will be free lobsters and ribeyes in the box. Did I mention that? Anyways, all the grass-fed meat that I've had over the last week from ButcherBox has been super delicious and I wanna thank them for sponsoring this video. Next up is pesto pasta salad, and the perfect shape for that is a shell. The ridges on the outside, paired up with the cavernous inside are gonna hold a ton of chunky, rustic pesto, and as an added bonus, they're the same size as the stuff we're gonna be mixing in as garnishes, but more on that later. Once this water's up to a ripping boil, in goes 225 grams of these shells, and then I'm gonna cook these for 12 minutes. Again, that's about three minutes past what the proper cook time on the box says. We want soft pasta, but not mushy pasta. After 12 minutes, that pasta's gonna get drained off, and then in goes 25 grams of white distilled vinegar and a squeeze of extra virgin olive oil, just like before. That gets stirred up, then flipped into a medium bowl for mixing and cooling. I like to blow on this just a little bit to get that cooling kick started, by the way. Very, very hot pasta will tend to carry over, cook quite a bit, and then we risk it becoming mushy. After about 20 minutes, the shells are cooled down and ready to be turned into pasta salad. First goes in my pesto. 300 grams is a great place to start. I'm very liberal with this stuff when it comes to pasta salad, and to make this pesto into a food processor, goes 100 grams of lightly toasted and then cooled pine nuts. Any nut will work here, especially walnuts. Those are a good choice because they're soft like pine nuts and they're very cheap. Next in is 100 grams of basil. The sweeter and greener, the better here. 20 grams of picked parsley, no stems, and then 30 grams of shallot. I've minced and rinsed these just like we did for the first pasta salad because they will break down faster in the food processor. And then behind that goes 100 grams of grated Parmesan cheese. Next in is 225 grams of cold extra virgin olive oil. It's been in the refrigerator for about 25 minutes. This cooler oil helps keep this pesto green as the food processor tends to heat things up from friction as it spins. And finally, five grams of salt and 30 grams of lemon juice. The lid goes on. And now I'm gonna spin this on high speed for 20 to 30 seconds or just until everything is well broken up. There we go. This is not the most traditional pesto ever made for sure, but it is a perfect dressing for a cold noodle salad. And it's also super easy to make. I keep it in the fridge pretty often for like weeknight chicken or salmon. I'm gonna start the pasta and the pesto together first before we add in any garnish. The stuff I'm about to mix in is pretty soft and fragile and the continuous folding would break them down. Once everything's well coated and bright green, in goes 200 grams of halved mozzarella pearls and 200 grams of halved cherry tomatoes. These are sun gold tomatoes from my garden and they're probably the easiest to grow best tasting tomato on earth. And a fun trick to cut a lot of these little BBs in half quickly is to use deli container lids. I'll put a handful down in the bottom, cover with a second lid, and then use a serrated knife to zip them all in half. You can probably do 15 to 20 tomatoes at a time this way. And it's really quick. Once the tomato's in, we're gonna throw in a strong pinch of Parmesan cheese and then using a paddle style utensil, we're gonna gently fold everything together. And that looks great. Pesto pasta salad is a very fun variation on the theme. And I think this style in particular blurs that line between pasta dish and proper salad. To finish this, we're gonna hit with some more pesto on top and then some grated Parmesan. And now all that's left to do is give it a taste. Mm. This is a good tasting pasta salad. It's salty and round and very herbal from all that basil. The pine nuts bring some fun mystery. I never splurge on those, so that's sick. All around, just a totally pro pasta salad, you guys. And if you were twisting my arm, making me grade this thing on the fly, I'm gonna say 9.7 out of 10. Next, pasta salad. Here we go. Up next is mom style pasta salad or Italian style, I guess you could call it. It's the kind that comes from the grocery store case in the suburbs where I grew up. So starting with the pasta again, this time rotini. It's gonna go into that 2000 grams of water with 45 grams of salt, just like before. And we're gonna cook this three minutes past package instructions and then strain. 25 grams of vinegar goes in, a splash of olive oil, and then I'm gonna stir it to combine and start to cool it off. 20 minutes later, we've got noodles that are ready to party. So into the bowl goes 150 grams of Beeman's classic Italian dressing. And to make that into a high-sided container goes 25 grams of red wine vinegar, 45 grams of white stilt vinegar, 20 grams of rinsed red onion, one garlic clove, 15 grams of red bell pepper, 25 grams of grainy mustard. Dijon mustard will also work. 15 grams of sugar, five grams of salt, and a quarter teaspoon each of oregano, basil, black pepper, and chili flake. Immersion blender goes in, the base gets spun up, and then I'm gonna slowly stream in 200 grams of neutral oil. Again, I'm using light colored olive oil here. And I wanna mention this dressing's gonna be kind of tart, but that's because it's designed to be paired with a lot of Parmesan cheese, and this pasta is gonna need that acidity. Behind that dressing goes 65 grams of small diced fresh mozzarella. Feel free to add cheddar or Colby Jack cheese cubes in place of that mozz. God knows your mom or grandma are out there throwing down on bright yellow cheddar in they salad. Next in is 100 grams of halved large black olives, 50 grams of sliced pepperoncinis, 100 grams of sliced oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes. The sun-drieds at my grocery store are actually super dry, and so I have to rehydrate them in water for three hours or so. Then I drain that water and top it with neutral oil. These are gonna stay good in the refrigerator for basically forever. They're super delicious and a great garnish for most foods. I'm gonna add those in. And then next in goes 60 grams of small diced red bell pepper. Behind that, 60 grams of sliced Genoa or soppressata-style salami, and 75 grams of grated Parmesan cheese. We want a lot of cheese in there, but I am gonna save just a little bit for later after we've tossed this together. Now, I'm gonna fold everything together, and you might notice that I went really big on the garnishes here, and that's because, for me, there should be an almost one-to-one ratio of pasta to chunks of stuff. Also, this whole thing needs to be really heavily dressed with both dressing and Parmesan cheese, and the only way to tell if we're there is to give things a taste. Personally, I think this needs a little bit more dressing, a little bit more Parmesan, and a hint of salt. That last mile of salinity is gonna be up to you guys, so make sure that you taste this often. It can really make all the difference between a tepid pasta salad that people don't touch and a bangin' pasta salad that people text you about after the party, praising your greatness. Once things are all salty, cheesy, and oily, it's time to give this salad that fancy plate treatment to really pay respect and present it in the best possible light. But honestly, whether this is thoughtlessly shoved into a Tupperware container or plated up on a $75 Crate and Barrel platter, this stuff is gonna have a certain gravity to it at any party. All three of these salads really need to be on the list of your barbecue sides to impress your buddies this summer. And really, I hope I've convinced you pasta salad, when done with care, is actually a really fun treat. So here's to many more bowls of cold squishiness this summer. Let's eat this thing.