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| Whole Wheat Orecchiette Pasta Salad with Roasted Asparagus, Red Bell Pepper, and Mushrooms is a perfect salad for Meatless Monday. |
Today the temperature in Utah is supposed to get above 90F so we've definitely entered the season for warm-weather eating, and lately I've had pasta salad on my mind. It seems like there are a lot of ho-hum combinations that give pasta salad a bad name, but I like the challenge of coming up with something that's really good, and I loved the Whole Wheat Spaghetti Salad I made recently. Then I excitedly discovered Delallo Organic Whole Wheat Orcchiette at the store in my new town, and my mind started spinning with thoughts of making a really drool-worthy vegetarian pasta salad. This Whole Wheat Pasta Salad with Roasted Asparagus, Red Bell Pepper, and Mushrooms has wonderful flavors from roasting the vegetables, and then I added this fun pasta shape, sliced green onion, chopped parsley, kicked-up Italian dressing and coarsely grated Parmesan to make a truly fantastic salad. If you can't find the whole wheat Orecchiette I used, just use any smallish whole wheat pasta shape, even macaroni. And if you're seeing this at a time of year when asparagus is not going to be available or you're not an asparagus fan, I'd just increase the mushrooms and red peppers and you'd still have a delicious salad. (If you skip the Parmesan and use a vegan dressing, this salad could easily be vegan.)
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