Rainbow Rotini Pasta Salad
Noodles and kids. Kids and noodles. I wonder if there’s a more beloved food for kids than noodles. Served hot or cold, they’re a perennial kid favorite!
Today, I’d like to share a colorful, kid-friendly pasta salad that combines noodles with crunchy vegetables and a light dressing. If you’re looking for quick-and-easy, this is the salad for you! It makes a refreshing lunch on a hot day and travels well in a cooler. We often make it to take up to our cabin on weekends.
This fresh-tasting salad is also customizable to your taste. You get to pick your favorite seasonal veggies and add as many as you like. Knowing most vegetables score a NuVal 100, you can feel great about serving them to your kids. We prefer using carrots, cucumber and quartered cherry tomatoes in this recipe. Sometimes we add chopped yellow pepper or even chives from our garden. Feel free to use whatever veggies your family enjoys.
Usually I’m a fan of homemade dressings, but I promised you quick and easy. So this recipe calls for bottled Italian dressing. We found this Food Club Italian Dressing with a NuVal score of 9. Even though it isn’t a particularly high score (none of the salad dressings we found scored very high), you get a lot of flavor using a small amount.
As for the pasta, any kind will work, but rainbow rotini gives it gorgeous color and the rotini-shape holds the dressing well. We used Creamette Rainbow Rotini with a NuVal score of 65. When cooking pasta, be careful to NOT overcook it. Use plenty of water and bring to a boil before adding the pasta. Taste your pasta when it’s about 2 minutes shy of the recommended cooking time on the package. It should be al dente—which means it should still have a little bite to it. When you remove it from heat be sure to rinse under very cold water to stop the cooking process and cool down the noodles.
Rainbow Rotini Pasta Salad Ingredients![Pasta Salad 1]()
These measures are approximate and can be altered to taste.
-2/3 cup Italian dressing
-3 cups cleaned, chopped, raw vegetables (we used carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes—pick your favorites!)
-6 cups rainbow rotini
Cook pasta according to package instructions until al dente. Drain and rinse under cold water. Place in large bowl with chopped vegetables. Toss with salad dressing and chill before serving.
Note: You can always add more dressing later if the pasta absorbs it and the salad needs a little more moisture.
What are your kids’ (or grandkids’) favorite veggies? Do you plant a garden? Or take advantage of area farmers markets? Please leave a comment below to share their favorites and how you serve them. We can always use veg-spiration—yes, that’s inspiration for how to get kids to eat more vegetables. For more kid-friendly recipe ideas, visit the BLEND Pinterest page today!
Wishing you a safe and healthy summer,
Kelly
This is a guest blog written by Kelly Radi,Passionate about food and nutrition, Kelly is a freelance writer, NuVal expert, former BLEND employee, and current BLEND advocate. A wife and mother of 2 teenagers, Kelly lives in Sartell where she is often spotted at Coborn’s scouring the shelves in search of the best NuVal scores. She enjoys cooking, playing tennis, and sitting down with a good book. She can be reached at radi.to.write@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this blog are the opinions of the writer and not the opinions of NuVal LLC, Coborn’s, Inc., BLEND, and the CentraCare Health Foundation. Read more “Peek Into Kelly’s Kitchen blogs here.
