We are nearing the end of our FIVE FOR THE FOURTH pasta salad posts! Which is good because it’s almost August! This one was probably my second favorite. I’m a big fan of fruit. I love strawberries and blueberries and cherries. Making salads with fruit in them is kind of my thing. I love fruity dressings too. I especially love making my own dressings. No preservatives or added sugars. It’s really hard to find store-bought salad dressing without guar gum or xanthan gum or other preservatives. They’ll tell you those are “harmless” but I disagree. They aren’t natural and shouldn’t be in our food. Thus, I make my own everything when I can.
To start, we will make the dressing in the food processor. We will need tofu, maple syrup, white wine vinegar, onion powder, sea salt, dry mustard, and poppy seeds. I also added fresh cherries at the end, changing it from a poppy seed dressing to a cherry poppy seed dressing. Blend all of these together in the food processor and keep in the fridge until you are ready to use.
You’ll notice I used gluten free noodles. One of our guests follows a gluten free diet so I was trying to be accomodating. I will say, I think regular noodles hold up way better in a pasta salad. I felt like these were kind of dry. But they worked fine. I also needed a red onion, bell peppers, cherries, baby spinach, cannellini beans, and sliced almonds. You can see the dressing that I pre-made in that container in the photo above. It’s very pink.
Add the baby spinach to a bowl. Top with the cooked and cooled pasta, the diced bell peppers, the drained and rinsed beans, and the cut and pitted cherries. Let me tell you-my thumb nails hurt for a whole day after pitting all the cherries and my nail beds were stained red. It was quite a mess.
Toast some almonds and top the salad with those and the dressing. Mix well and serve cold!
Next week: salad number five of five!