I’ve made this salad countless of times. It comes together in 15 minutes and tastes amazing. Sun-dried tomatoes have this strong and satisfying umami flavor. If you blend them with garlic, basil and a tiny bit of curry (an everlasting secret ingredient of mine), it will make a flavorful pesto. Mix it with boiled pasta, feisty red onion and luscious olives and you have a wonderful festive main dish. It’s so easy to make that it suits perfectly for a weeknight meal, too!
Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 4 – 6 people
Salad:
- 3 ½ cups / 250 g uncooked pasta (farfalle for example, gluten-free, if needed)
- 14 oz / 360 g pitted Kalamata olives or black olives
- ½ red onion
- 10 cherry tomatoes
Pesto:
- 1 cup / 200 g sun-dried tomatoes in oil (use all of the oil too)
- 4 handfuls fresh basil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- pinch of ground black pepper
- ½ tsp curry powder
- (salt to taste, if you are using unsalted sun-dried tomatoes)
Boil the pasta until al dente. Drain it, rinse with cold water and mix it with olives, thinly sliced red onion and chopped cherry tomatoes. Make the pesto: blend sun-dried tomatoes and their oil with basil, garlic, black pepper and curry powder. Mix the pesto with pasta. Taste and add salt, if needed.
