In the old days, Americans relied almost entirely on potatoes as accompaniment to meat. Pasta salads may be used for this same purpose, with greater variety.

Leftovers of all kinds can find their way into a pasta salad, lentil salad, beet-rice salad, or soup. Of the three kinds of salad, pasta salads are the most convenient as pasta can be cooked in 15 minutes.

For a Leftover Strategy, click or scroll to the end of this page. 

This is an extremely simple, but tasty, pasta salad. Its use of canned tuna is not a makeshift compromise. Remember that, for this one fish only, James Beard thought the canned version superior to the fresh.

This salad is not greatly dependent on quality of the tuna. However, the can of tuna should contain at least two thirds flakes. Some inexpensive tuna is almost entirely in a pulverized form, which provides flavor enough, but is not attractive.

For any salad where green beans are visually prominent, they are best cooked by the French method, with lots of salted water. These are bright green, uniformly round along their length. If time does not permit this treatment, then steamed beans will do quite well.

The salad may be served immediately at room temperature. Or it may be made several hours ahead of time, placed in the refrigerator, and served chilled. The mixture will only improve through blending of flavors.

Serves 3 as side dish

Boil the beans in 2 quarts of water with ½ tablespoon salt. Cook until tender, but retaining a little bite. This will take about 8 minutes. Start testing at 6 minutes. Rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. Leave in the colander or on a plate until needed.

Boil pasta 12 minutes, or until tender. Pour off boiling water and replace with cold tap water. Let pasta sit in cold water until needed.

To assemble

Drain pasta in a colander and rinse with cold water. Shake the colander a couple of times and place pasta in the salad bowl.

Leave beans whole or cut them as desired, then stir them into the pasta. Cut optional onions in thin wedges and stir these in.

Drain any liquid from the tuna fish and reserve it. Add tuna fish to the bowl.

Toss the mixture with olive oil, but not lemon juice as yet. If dry, add back some of the tuna liquid. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, or refrigerate until needed.

In either case, just before serving, stir in lemon juice to taste.

Ingredients for simple salad above, plus:

Cherry tomatoes, or plum tomatoes cut in wedges
Calamata olives, or other olives
Lettuce

Wash lettuce in cold water and dry in a spin dryer. Tear in double bite sized pieces, or bite-sized pieces. Toss tomatoes, olives, and lettuce with the pasta.

Variations

The olives nudge this production in a Mediterranean direction. To take it further add capers, and/or anchovies.

This salad is good whether you have little salmon, or much. It is an excellent vehicle for leftover salmon.

Serve plain, or on a bed of lettuce. Spinach makes a nice accompaniment, along with rolls or bread. As the flavors of the salad are delicate, flavored breads - or other interesting breads - add appreciably to the meal. Consider challah, olive bread, focaccia, corn bread, etc.

Per person as side dish

Boil pasta in water until tender. Pour off hot water and replace with cold tap water. Set aside until needed.

If salmon is dry, moisten with water. Cut salmon in serving pieces. Chop celery in quarter inch pieces, square or sliced on the diagonal.

Place salmon, celery, and pasta in the serving bowl. Toss with olive oil enough to coat lightly.

Just before serving, stir in lemon juice to taste and decorate with dill.

Bed of Lettuce (optional)

Tear lettuce roughly in 1 by 2 inch pieces. As the bed is buried, you will get no points for chiffonade. Toss the bed of lettuce very lightly with olive oil, and a little lemon juice.

Place lettuce in a bowl or on a platter. Place the pasta salad on top.

Variations

Use cooked white beans for half the pasta. Flageolets are particularly good here.
Use cooked chicken, turkey, or trout instead of salmon, omitting dill.
Add green peas (frozen, thawed) as decoration just before serving.

Pasta in the form of radiatori, little balls with deep crevices on the outside, are an uncommon form of pasta, but an intriguing one.

Quite often pasta salad recipes provide sauces intended to coat the pasta. A smooth form of pasta is specified, lest sauce be caught in the cracks. Radiatori presents a challenge to that concept because you want sauce to go into the crevices. The recipe below provides such a sauce with a piquante flavor.

This pasta salad may be served warm or cold.

Per person as side dish

Chop tomatoes coarsely. Chop anchovies and olives fine. Place all in the serving bowl, then stir in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Stir in pasta. Mix well so that sauce goes into crevices of the radiatori.

LEFTOVER STRATEGY

The Day After the Party

The day after the party, you will be faced with a refrigerator full of little bits of things. No recipe can be given, but there is a procedure: take all the leftovers out and divide them as candidates for

Chunky sorts of things that look intact may be used in the pasta salad. These would include cooked green beans, cooked pork, and the like.

All the wimpy stuff goes into soup; cooked tomatoes, cooked spinach, spaghetti, and so on. If the soup doesn’t look pretty, you can always puree everything in the food processor, then top with thick yogurt cream sprinkled with paprika.

Remember that you can make a meal of soup and pasta salad together.