Yum Yum Yum we thoroughly enjoyed this pasta salad made with tomatoes and basil from our garden. I mixed this up in the morning to give the flavors time to marry with the exception of the basil. I added the basil about 30 minutes before serving so that it would be fresh. This is an outstanding salad with lots of flavor. It will be repeated in our house. Thank you blondeprincess for sharing your recipe!
Really good. I made the pesto with basil from my garden, and I used Formaggio marinated mozzarella cheese balls from Sam's Club. They are cherry size, so I cut them in half. I added a teaspoon or so of Aleppo pepper for a little kick. Let the pasta cool a bit before adding in the cheese balls! I served this with poached salmon topped with scallion ginger sauce, a green salad, and naan. For the pasta, I used pipettes which have openings large enough for the pesto to get inside, so good! This would be a good salad to have with bbq ribs or chicken.
Decent general recipe. For those saying it was missing something - I'd say that something is balsamic. Either mix some vinegar into the dressing, or drizzle some balsamic glaze on after the fact.
4/15 awesome i loved this. made and cooled pasta added the pesto mixed with the oil and garlic like recipe said. i followed the recipe except added grilled chicken breast cubed and some black olives. alot of tomato and alot of mozz cubes. this was really good. make for a bbq as a side yum! used trader joes pesto.
It doesn't have the caprese taste without the sweet-ish tang of good balsamic vinegar, so I added balsamic and also more garlic. And I added toasted pine nuts atop each plate right before serving.
This was pretty good. Due to a tomato allergy I subbed steamed broccoli florets for the grape tomatoes and I added some sliced black olives to add another dimension. Instead of the mozzarella pearls I subbed a block of fresh marinated mozzarella instead and I sliced it into 1/4" chunks. Since other reviewers said it was bland or lacking something I added some fresh mushrooms I'd cooked in EVOO and balsamic vinegar and they had a little tang which greatly improved the salad as a side dish.
We love basil pesto so I know this pasta salad is going to be delicious and it was.
I used homemade pesto sauce and little more than called for, bow tie shaped pasta and went ahead and cut also the Mozzarella balls in half to have more of them though out the salad.
Everything was perfect until I realized that this salad is in no way going to make 6 servings. I had to boil another 1/2 cup of pasta and add little more of the rest of the ingredients to come up to a 6 serving amount. So be mindful of that when making this recipe. Otherwise, this is a great tasting pasta salad.
This was good but was missing something. I think I would use fresh minced garlic if I make it again. It's good but tasted like store bought. And yes, it's very salty once you make the mixture. I made a day ahead of my bbq and when I served it, the salt was not an issue. It needs to meld for awhile.
Very good pasta salad. Easy to make and I like the fact that the dressing is made fresh and not from a bottle.
