Cold Pasta, Wahoo!

Besides tasty ooey gooey pizza, my second most missed gluten food is cold pasta salad.  In high school and college, I loved throwing together a box of whole wheat pasta with a variety of vegetables, herbs, and salad dressing for a quick and easy lunch to go.  When I wanted to mix things up, I would experiment with different types of frozen veggie combos, olives, artichoke hearts,  capers, sardines, cheeses, and other proteins.  It was healthy, filling, quick, and cheap!

I also made my mom’s low-fat macaroni salad (featuring low-fat mayo, carrots, onions, and bell peppers) regularly as a side dish for cookouts and office parties.

When I started eating gluten-free, I quickly found pastas that worked for me.  I particularly enjoy Tinkyada Brown Rice Pastas and Sam Mills Corn Pastas–I’ve cooked everything from stuffed shells to vegetable lasagna with no complaints.  Sure I’ve come across a few brands and blends that stick to the inside of the pot or produce glue-like residue (great for wallpaper!), but I found the pasta search to be much less challenging than my ongoing quest for good bread or pizza.

Except for one situation.  I hadn’t found a gluten-free pasta that didn’t turn hard and crunchy when refrigerated.  Over the years, I have wasted umpteen pounds of pasta and other ingredients when trying to replicate mom’s macaroni salad or my other favorite cold pasta dishes.   I thought I had a winner with the Sam Mills corn pasta when it still felt soft after several hours of refrigeration.  But after a full chill overnight, I awoke the next day to find crunchy hard macaroni salad.  Ugh…into the trash!

While surfing around on the web last week I came across this post about Andean Dream pasta, a quinoa and rice blend, working well with cold dishes.  I immediately took a trip to my local Whole Foods and found a box of their elbow macaroni.  The bad news is that this brand is pretty pricey at $3.99 for an 8oz box; but the excellent news is this:

It makes delicious, soft, non-plaster macaroni salad!!!  I gave it a full 24 hours in the refrigerator before deeming it a smashing success. The only thing I would do differently next time is cook the pasta for a couple more minutes. The box’s instructions said to cook it for 6-8 minutes and I drained it right at the 6 minute mark.  I think a full 8 minutes will make it less al dente next time.

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