Featuring: ITALIAN PASTA SALAD & CREAMY MACARONI SALAD
Here are two classic pasta salad recipes that we can all enjoy all summer long, and in any cookouts. They are not only easy to prepare, they are also full of healthy and fresh ingredients to your liking. Although the star ingredient is pasta, which is undeniably heavy in carbs; we can always use healthier low-carb substitutes that I have listed below.
I remember growing up before the digital age. And every time my (late) mother made my favorite creamy macaroni salad, she would ask me to “go find the recipe.” I had to scour loose files in one of the kitchen drawers to look for the recipe. She knew the basic ingredients by heart. However, she always consulted her recipe book to make sure she wasn’t skipping anything.
As I got older and started working in the food service industry, I realized that recipes are not carved in stones. I must admit that in many years of professional cooking, I never really followed a recipe to a tee. I used it as a guide and customized it by using different methods or adding more seasonings; thus changing the flavor profile.
These summer pasta salad recipes are very flexible in terms of ingredients and techniques. We can scour the internet and we will find tons of pasta salad recipes for sure. Today, the diet spectrum has significantly changed from general to more distinctive diets such as low-carb, keto, gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo, and others alike. Hence, the need to adjust recipes is more necessary than ever.
Here are a few healthier substitutes for some of the ingredients:
- Pasta substitute – Squash noodles, Quinoa pasta, Rice pasta, Black bean pasta
- Mayo substitute – Avocado oil mayo, Low-fat mayo, Soya mayo
- Meat/Protein substitute – Bacon, Grilled chicken or turkey, Baked tofu
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