Greek Pasta Salad Recipe with Feta: 30 Minutes EASY! | Best Recipe Box (2024)

FAQs

What are the five mistakes to avoid pasta salad? ›

Place a folded paper towel in the bottom of your meal prep container to keep greens from getting soggy. Sprinkle Greek herbs over the top for extra Mediterranean flavor. Be sure to keep the dressing separate from the salad until you're ready to eat it.

Cook the pasta al dente: Al dente pasta is firmer and less likely to become mushy or soggy when mixed with other ingredients. Rinse the pasta with cold water after cooking: This helps to remove excess starch and cool the pasta, which can help to prevent it from becoming soggy.

You can keep leftovers of Greek Salad in the fridge for approximately 3 days or so.

If you're making a dish that will be served chilled or at room temp—think cold soba, rice noodles, pasta salad—you do want to rinse so that you get toothsome (sorry) individual strands rather than one big gummy clump. Certain types of noodles benefit from a rinse in almost all applications.

An important thing to remember about pasta is that it hardens and gets chewy as it cools. Since it's not being served hot or with sauce, the pasta benefits from an extra minute of cooking, but don't let it get mushy. → Follow this tip: For a well-cooked pasta salad, plan to cook the pasta until just past al dente.

Vinegar and other acidic ingredients do strange things to the flavor of pasta when used in salad-level amounts. Ever notice an irritating acerbic aftertaste just about every time you've eaten pasta salad? That's the vinegar announcing itself, and it's not pleasant.

No, in almost every case, you should not rinse pasta after it's cooked. It's true that rinsing noodles or pasta after cooking halts the cooking process. “This is also known as shocking,” Tiess says. But rinsing also removes the starch water after the noodles are strained, which is what helps adhere sauce to noodles.

Fusilli, rotini and cavatappi

Our experts all agreed that the short, twisty pasta shapes known as fusilli and rotini are excellent candidates for pasta salad, as is cavatappi, a larger pasta also referred to as “corkscrew macaroni.”

Is it okay to eat Greek salad every day? ›

It is rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, and iron. It also contains ingredients full of phytonutrients and antioxidants, such as oil and onion, which reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease. We suggest adding this low-fat superfood to your everyday diet!

Soft cheeses Opened soft cheeses like Brie, goat's cheese, mozzarella and feta are more perishable and typically last for a week to a few weeks in the refrigerator. Opened fresh cheeses like ricotta and cottage cheese have an even shorter shelf life and are best consumed within a week or two of opening.

When you're making cold pasta salads, it's helpful to rinse your cooked pasta because it's going to lower the temperature of the pasta, which is ideal given that it's going to be served chilled — often alongside other cool and/or raw ingredients.