The Recipe Room

Broccoli and bacon make a great combination. I especially like broccoli salad with bacon because of the contrast with the leafy green veg and crispy meat. In this recipe for pasta salad with broccoli and fried bacon, I add pasta to the mix, as well as a few more veggies for good measure.

I am aware that pasta salad is considered a summer food, but being the eternal optimist, and having seen the latest weather forecasts for London, I believe we soon enough will be visiting the park for a spring picnic. One can only hope!

It is not important whether we have to eat it inside huddled on the couch or, with better luck, on a picnic blanket in the park. Regardless of the weather, a pasta salad is easy to make and is a quick and cheap lunch to bring to University in a plastic box. Plus, it stays fresh for 1-2 days in the fridge! Make a large bowl and you are set for lunch, dinner AND picnic time!

What we need:

• 500g of Penne pasta
• 1 large red onion
• 200g of broccoli
• 200g of Feta cheese
• 100g of black olives, without pits
• 200g of sliced bacon
• 100g of sun-dried tomatoes
• 3 large ripe tomatoes
• 1 cucumber
• 3 pinches of ground pepper (to taste)
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 and ½ decilitre of crème fraiche (sour cream or natural thick yoghurt for cooking)
• 2 cloves of garlic

How we make it:

1. Boil the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. Drain and put in a bowl for later.
2. Chop the onion into thin slices.
3. Chop the tomatoes and cucumber into squares.
4. Chop the olives into halves.
5. Put all the chopped vegetables into a large bowl.
6. Fry the bacon in the oil. Take off excess fat with paper and let it dry.
7. Once cool, cut the bacon into slices and place in a bowl.
8. Grate the Feta cheese over the salad and add the sun-dried tomatoes.
9. Mix all the ingredients and carefully put the pasta in the large bowl.
10. Add the pepper according to taste.
11. Pour the crème fraiche into a small bowl and press the garlic cloves into it. Mix carefully and pour into a salad bowl. Mix with all the ingredients.

Serves: 3-4
Time needed: 20 minutes
Level: very easy

Tags: bacon, broccoli, cucumber, Feta cheese, garlic, olives, pasta, pasta salad, pasta salad with broccoli and bacon, quick cuisine, red onion, sun-dried tomatoes, tomatoes, yoghurt

This entry was posted on Monday, 2 April, 2012 at 12:26 pm by Leanne Summers and is filed under Less than 30 minutes, Main Courses, Meal for 4 people. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed RSS 2.0. You can leave a comment, or make a trackback from your own blog.