Artichoke is something I have fallen in love with ever since I ate at a local Greek restaurant. Ever since then I look for something with artichoke on the menu of restaurants. I recently started to look into canned artichoke in my kitchen and have been having a lot of fun, one day I plan on getting daring and use fresh artichoke. Canned artichoke keeps for about a year, a good item to store if you can rotate it into your regular recipes.
My wife used to make pasta salad from a box quite a bit, which tastes fine but it is nothing compared to this pasta salad. Needless to say, we don’t buy boxed pasta salads anymore. We make it fresh and we make enough to use for a couple days.
- 3 cups uncooked bow-tie pasta (or other pasta)
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 can water-packed artichoke hearts, rinsed, drained and chopped
- 2 can (2-1/4 ounces) sliced ripe olives, drained
- 3 ounces sliced pepperoni
- 1 small onion (red or yellow), diced
- ½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- ½ cup chopped green pepper
- (optional) 1 Avocado diced
- 1 cup Italian salad dressing
- Cook pasta according to package directions.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the mozzarella cheese, artichokes, avocado, olives, pepperoni, onion, Parmesan cheese, green pepper, and Italian dressing.
- Stir until well mixed.
- Drain pasta and rinse under cold water until pasta is chilled.
- Add chilled pasta to mixing bowl and toss together.
- Serve right away or cover and chill in the fridge till ready. I think it tastes better when it has chilled in the fridge for 30+ minutes, it seems to marinate a bit.
I usually use store bought Italian dressing because it is so cheap but you can even make your own Italian dressing dry mix if you want to store it long term. I make sure I have the spices and dry herbs to make the dry mix and put the recipe in my collection if I end up needing it.
Dry pasta is also a great item to have in your food storage, if stored properly it will keep for a really long time. I buy it in regular size packages and stuff the packages into a sealed 5 gallon bucket. Pasta does not have hardly any nutritional value, like white flour, but it is great for adding variety to your meals and it is easy to cook. My favorite pasta to use is the bow-tie pasta, it seems to be the easiest pasta for my toddler to eat by herself.
I store quite a bit of shredded cheese in my freezer which will keep it good for about 6 months or so, I haven’t fully tested this yet. I buy huge bags of shredded cheese at Costco and divide it up in freezer bags for convenience.
Onions and green pepper, as well as other vegetables you could substitute into this recipe, are easy to grow in your own garden. We started our first vegetable garden at our new house this year, hope all grows well. Even though onions and green peppers are cheap to buy I think it is a good thing for any prepper to grown there own.
Follow
Made this salad for company and they loved it!
This pasta salad has been devoured everywhere I have shared it, at church activities, family gatherings, and other get-togethers.