Hello friends! I loosely based this recipe on one I found in one of my cookbooks. The actual recipe called for orzo but I decided to try it with spiral noodles (rotini). The salad was very basic-baby spinach, some swiss chard that Mr. FBBQ and I got at the farmer’s market, cucumbers, carrots, little tomatoes, bell peppers, flaxseed, pepitas, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds (which add a great crunch to your salad), red onions (that we also got at the farmer’s market and were super-potent), and black olives. Mr. FBBQ was kind enough to chop those onions for me. He is so sweet!
Boil water and cook the pasta. While that is going on you can compose your salad! Obviously, you can put whatever you choose in your salad. Get creative!
Drain a can of chickpeas (or soak and simmer some dry ones). Add those to your salad. You could really choose any type of beans to add to your salad.
Once the pasta is cooked and cooled you can add it to the salad. But lets talk dressing! If you hadn’t guessed from the title of this post, there is lemon involved.
You could choose to make your own dressing or use store bought. I found a champagne vinagrette from Drench (www.iDrench.com) that contains olive oil, champagne vinegar, garlic, dijon mustard, sea salt, and black pepper. That’s it. No added sugars. No preservatives. No dairy. No soy. Gluten free. Vegan. Women owned company based in Michigan!! Seriously, check them out. They have some great flavors. I’m really picky about my store-bought dressing. This one checks all the boxes!
Once I added the noodles, I squeezed the lemon half onto the salad then added some of my Drench dressing. This simple salad made a great meal for a hot summer day!