What do we always want in summer? Fresh, light, and hydrating dishes that make us feel good, but also satisfy our desire for nourishment. Of course, there’s salads, smoothies, cold creams, and ice cream. But pasta? Are we sure we want to give it up? We're not. That's why we decided to prepare it deliciously cold by calling on the olive and their intensely Mediterranean taste. Bite after bite we discovered that cold pasta salad with olives gives the dish that extra edge offering up lots of ideas to create new recipes. You should try it to believe it!
Black olives
The first rule is that black olives in cold pasta salads are perfect every time. This is because they combine well with all the ingredients we usually include like tomatoes, tuna, mozzarella and other fresh cheeses. Black olives offer variety types and flavors, you just have to taste them all to find which is your favorite! We suggest you go for the delightful fleshiness of taggiasca olives.
Yes to greens
Here the combinations become more complex. We can choose an assorted selection of fresh greens when we go for a pasta salad based on fresh vegetables, but they can also be pickled or steamed. Also great with blue fish such as mackerel and goes well with fillets of dried meat or diced cooked ham. The most suitable element for preparing a good pasta salad is the Bella di Cerignola (large olives from Foggia), characterized by their elongated shape provide a mild and delicate bite.
Let's call it pesto
You can obtain a really tasty blend from olives too. Let's use it as pesto to season the pasta before adding the other ingredients. If you don’t want to darken the pasta before serving, just lightly decorate your pasta salad with a few drops of the olive pesto. Regardless, before seasoning the pasta, emulsify the olive pesto with a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil to get a less intense result.
They're all good, as long as...
The only fundamental rule to preparing a good pasta salad with olives is to rigorously pit them. If you serve them as an aperitif they can be offered in their entirety, but when we put them in a dish when we eat everything together (such as cold pasta) it’s a good rule to make sure that there are pits left on the table napkin.