High Protein Pasta Salad: Low Carb, No Processed Junk

High protein pasta salad from this recipe shown on a plate garnished with some chopped parsley

Ingredients

For the salad

12 oz Brami protein pasta fusilli
6 oz uncured hard salami cubed
6 oz block cheese cubed and halved
1½ cups celery sliced thin
1½ cups cucumber quartered and sliced
1 cup cherry tomatoes halved
1 cup mini sweet peppers sliced
½ cup red onion sliced thin
½ cup Kalamata olives sliced
¼ cup pepperoncini sliced

For the dressing

⅓ cup red wine vinegar organic additive free
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup Pecorino Romano finely grated
2 tbsp pepperoncini brine
1 tsp dried oregano
½ tsp black pepper

Instructions

Cook the pasta one minute short of the package time. Salt the water. Bean-blend pasta softens further in the dressing, so anything at or past al dente in the pot is already too far.
Rinse it cold and drain it well. Run cold water over it until it stops steaming. Rinsing is wrong for hot pasta and right here — it kills the carryover cooking and washes off the surface starch that would otherwise glue the whole bowl together.
Whisk the dressing in the bottom of the serving bowl. Olive oil, vinegar, brine, Pecorino, oregano, black pepper. It will separate. That's what a real vinaigrette does.
Add the pasta by itself and toss it while it's still slightly warm. This is the step that matters. Warm pasta drinks the dressing; cold pasta sits in it. Dump everything in at once and you'll taste the difference on day two.
Fold in the chicken and eggs if adding them, breaking up the big chunks with a fork as you go.
Fold in everything else. Salami, cheese, celery, cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, onion, olives, pepperoncini.
Chill at least one hour, four if you can wait. It needs the time. The acid has to move into the pasta and the vegetables have to release a little water.
Toss again before you serve it. The dressing migrates to the bottom of the bowl. Scrape it back up.

Notes

Pasta shape. Fusilli or rotini. You want ridges and hollows that trap dressing. Spaghetti or anything long is wrong here.

Chicken. Canned chunk breast is what I use because it's shelf-stable and it's already cooked. Rotisserie chicken beats it on flavor if you've got one. Grilled breasts or thighs will work too.

Cucumber. Deseed the cucumbers and remove the soft middle when preparing them to remove the potential for moisture ruining your pasta salad early.

Red onion. Slice it thin and let it sit in the vinegar for ten minutes before you build the salad if raw onion is too sharp for you. It takes the bite off without cooking it.

Olives and pepperoncini. Both are usually clean. Check the pepperoncini for sulfites if you're sensitive — mine list metabisulfite as a color stabilizer.

About the dressing ratio. This is deliberately acid-forward, close to 1.75 parts vinegar to 1 part oil, where a classic vinaigrette is 3 parts oil to 1. Straight off the whisk it tastes too sharp. Don't correct it. The pasta absorbs the acid and mutes it while it chills, and by hour four it's right.

Nutrition