Pasta Salad Summer with Dan Pashman

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It – "Pasta Salad Summer with Dan Pashman"

Episode Information:

• Title: Pasta Salad Summer with Dan Pashman
• Host: Alison Stewart
• Guest: Dan Pashman, Host of The Sporkful and Author of Anything's Pastable
• Release Date: May 27, 2025
• Description: In this episode of All Of It, Alison Stewart engages with Dan Pashman to explore the art of crafting the perfect pasta salad. The conversation delves into pasta shapes, ingredient combinations, and innovative recipes that can transform a mundane side dish into a standout summer favorite.

---

Introduction to the Episode

Alison Stewart welcomes listeners to All Of It and introduces Dan Pashman, renowned for his podcast The Sporkful and his cookbook Anything's Pastable. The episode sets the stage for a deep dive into the world of pasta salads, addressing common pitfalls and celebrating creative variations that elevate this classic dish.

The Challenge of the Perfect Pasta Salad

Dan Pashman kicks off the discussion by addressing the widespread perception of pasta salad as either bland or overly acidic. He reflects on his three-year journey developing a new pasta shape, Cascatelli, for his podcast The Sporkful, which has since gained popularity and is now featured in his cookbook.

Dan Pashman [02:50]:

"A great pasta salad should function the way any great salad does—it should be crunchy, bright, fresh, and acidic. Adding carby, doughy pasta makes it more satisfying and comforting."

Debunking Common Misconceptions

Alison poses a seemingly simple yet pivotal question: Does pasta salad have to be cold? Dan delves into the debate, referencing Emily Nunn's newsletter Department of Salad, and concludes that while warm pasta salads can be delightful as side dishes, traditional pasta salads are best served at room temperature to maintain their structure and freshness.

Dan Pashman [04:12]:

"If it's warm, to me, I would say it's not a pasta salad. It's a pasta dish."

Listener Interactions: Sharing Community Favorites

Throughout the episode, several listeners call in to share their favorite pasta salad recipes and tips:

1. George from Montclair [05:20]: Recounts the legendary ziti salad from The Store in Amagansett, highlighting the unique combination of shallots, gherkins, and G Wash bullion powder.

   George [05:39]:

   "The key is shallots, gherkins, and G Wash bullion powder. Anyone who wants it, you can get this online."

2. Zach from Crown Heights [07:30]: Enthusiastically describes a fresh rigatoni salad featuring spinach, basil, miso, snap peas, and thick slices of Parmesan.

   Zach [07:58]:

   "It was banging."

   Dan Pashman [08:53]:

   "It's kind of like a pesto. It’s the same root word—pesto means to pound. There’s an infinite number of variations."

3. Mansi from Brooklyn [14:00]: Advocates for orzo pasta salads, praising their ability to absorb flavors and recommending combinations like vinaigrette with cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs.

   Mansi [14:00]:

   "Orzo is the best way. You get a good pasta bite with everything else every time."

4. Linda from Long Island City [23:57]: Shares her inventive approach using macaroni as a dip base, incorporating portobello mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and optional chicken for a hearty twist.

   Linda [23:57]:

   "It started out as a dip, but then I added macaroni and it became like the best barbecue macaroni salad ever."

Expert Tips: Crafting the Ideal Pasta Salad

Dan provides invaluable advice on selecting the right pasta shapes and preparing ingredients to ensure a superior pasta salad experience:

• Pasta Shapes: Emphasizes the importance of short, sturdy shapes like Cascatelli, casarecce, or torchiette over delicate ones like rotini or bow ties, which can become overly saucy and lose their structure.

  Dan Pashman [10:10]:

  "Short shapes are easily stabbable and have nooks and crannies to hold ingredients without becoming mushy."

• Preparation Techniques: Recommends cooking pasta al dente and keeping dressing and vegetables separate until serving to prevent the pasta from soaking up excess moisture and becoming soggy.

  Dan Pashman [04:56]:

  "Keep the components separate, combine in the last minute."

• Ingredient Enhancements: Advocates for adding crunchy elements like blanched green beans or fresh olives to introduce texture and depth of flavor.

  Dan Pashman [06:29]:

  "Crunch is important. Olives add flavor and make it feel substantial."

• Herbs and Acidity: Highlights the role of herbs and pickled red onions in adding freshness and balanced acidity.

  Dan Pashman [18:17]:

  "Don't sleep on herbs. They add color and freshness. Pickled red onion adds crunch and acidity."

Innovative Recipes and Applications

Alison and Dan explore creative pasta salad applications beyond traditional recipes:

• Shawarma Tacos: Dan introduces his summer project—shawarma tacos—combining grilled chicken with shawarma barbecue sauce, flour tortillas, and assorted fixings like Israeli salad and tahini, creating an interactive and flavorful barbecue option.

  Dan Pashman [27:50]:

  "It's fun and interactive, with every flavor and texture all at once."

• Microwave Dish Fusion: Discusses the fusion of Italian and American elements, such as incorporating hot dogs into pasta salads for a hearty, crowd-pleasing dish.

  Dan Pashman [21:24]:

  "This is authentically Italian in the sense that it's adaptable and incorporates diverse flavors."

Conclusion and Takeaways

The episode culminates with a reaffirmation of the versatility and potential of pasta salads when approached with creativity and thoughtful ingredient selection. Dan's insights, combined with listener contributions, paint a vibrant picture of pasta salad as a dynamic and adaptable dish suitable for various tastes and occasions.

Dan Pashman [28:01]:

"There's an infinite number of ways to make a pasta salad delicious."

For listeners seeking to elevate their pasta salad game, All Of It offers a treasure trove of inspiration, practical tips, and community-driven recipes that celebrate the endless possibilities of this beloved summer staple.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Dan Pashman [02:50]: "A great pasta salad should function the way any great salad does—it should be crunchy, bright, fresh, and acidic."
• Zach [07:58]: "It was banging."
• Dan Pashman [10:10]: "Short shapes are easily stabbable and have nooks and crannies to hold ingredients without becoming mushy."
• Dan Pashman [18:17]: "Don't sleep on herbs. They add color and freshness."

---

This comprehensive exploration of pasta salads on All Of It not only demystifies the process of making an exceptional pasta salad but also celebrates the communal and creative spirit that food brings to our summer gatherings.

Transcript

[Dan Pashman]

All of it is supported by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?

[Alison Stewart]

Progressive makes it easy to see if.

[Dan Pashman]

You could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you are here on today's show. Dr. Orna Goralnik joins us to talk about the new season of the show Couples Therapy. And take your questions and calls. Musician Carla Cook is here to preview her show celebrating the work of her father, Sam Cooke. She's performing live in WNYC Studio 5. Her heard them warming up. They sound great. And also writer Amanda Hess joins us to talk about her new book second Life, which is about pregnancy and parenting in the digital age. That's the plan. So let's get this started with something you may have deeply held opinions about listeners. It's time for another round of small stakes. Big opinions. Today we are talking positive salad. Maybe over the weekend you went to a barbecue, you had a little pasta salad and it was fine. It's always there. It's never really the star. It's often bland or too acidic. The vegetables are often too raw or the whole thing is too kind of wet. Well, today I have an expert with me who knows something about pasta. Dan Pashman spent three years creating a new pasta shape for his podcast the Sporksville. He wound up developing one called Cascatelli, and it has been a giant hit. You've probably seen it in your local grocery store. Then he published a cookbook called Anything's Pastable with a whole chapter on stepping up your pasta salad game. Dan Pashman is with me in studio. It is always good to see you.

[Dan Pashman]

Hey, Alison, Great to be back.

[Alison Stewart]

Hey, it's time for your small steaks. Big Opinions, what's your take on pasta salad? For or against? Have you ever had a good one? Have you ever had a bad one? Tell us what makes your pasta salad great. Or if you aren't into it, tell us that too. Or maybe you can tell us why and Dan can offer a solution. Our Phone number is 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. You can call in and you can join us on air or you can send us a text message to that number as well. 212-4339-692221-24433. WNYC. So why does pasta salad get such a bad rap?

[Dan Pashman]

I mean, first of all, there's so few of them that you ever see. I think that. That, yeah, it's just people, like, they figure they need a carby side dish for a barbecue. These are pot. And the ones you always see are the macaroni salad. Yes, Right. The elbows with that sort of gloopy, which, you know, I love it once in a while, but, like, you know, I feel like macaroni salad ends up at the barbecue when, like, your friend was coming over, and they realized on the way that they forgot to bring something. So they run into a supermarket, and they go into these plastic tubs of gloopy macaroni salad. It's just womp, womp, you know, like, no one wants to see that guy walk through the door. But then there's the one that's, like, the bow ties with the, like, chopped red and green peppers and kind of this acrid vinaigrette. That's 99% of pasta salads, I think. And so that's just. It's just sad. And to me, you know, a great pasta salad should function the way any great salad does, which is you want something crunchy, it should be bright, it should be fresh, it should be acidic. But now, instead of just being the components of any great salad, you're adding carby, doughy pasta to it. So now it's more satisfying, it's a little more comforting. And so when done well, I feel like a pasta salad can harness the fresh ingredients of summer. It can be a star at your barbecue instead of just being a sad side dish.

[Alison Stewart]

All right, this sounds like a dumb question, but does pasta salad have to be cold? Can it be hot?

[Dan Pashman]

That's a great question. I mean, I've had deep conversations. I don't know if you know Emily Nunn, who writes this great newsletter called Department of Salad about whether a warm salad counts as a salad. And look, it gets very Socratic, very Talmudic. You know, we don't really have time to get into the full depths of these philosophical questions, Allison. But I think probably, if it's warm, to me, I would say it's not a pasta salad. It's a pasta dish. And it can be a great side dish at a barbecue. But I like to do as much of the stuff for a barbecue as I can at room temperature. Because you don't want to be. You don't want to spend the whole party Inside. And you can't do. You're not, probably not going to do pasta on the grill unless you go one of these massive outdoor kitchens with a stove and all that. Most people don't have that.

[Alison Stewart]

All right, so we're talking cold, room temperature pasta, room temp.

[Dan Pashman]

But usually I will, like, make the dressing or the vegetables, the fillings, keep them separate, cook the pasta before the guests arrive, maybe undercook it by a minute, and then combine all the ingredients at the last minute. So because you don't want the pasta sitting in a dressing, because then it will soak it all up, then there won't be any dressing left. The pasta may turn soft, and that creates problems. So keep the components separate, combine in the last minute.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to George, who's calling in from Montclair. Hi, George, thanks for calling. Hi. How are you doing?

[George]

Well, I just wanted to introduce. I'm sure your author knows about it. There was a store out in Amagansett called the Store, and it made a ziti salad that blew our minds in 1975, and we still make it today.

[Dan Pashman]

Tell me about it.

[George]

I'm sure you've heard about it. Well, the key is shallots, gherkins, and G Wash bullion powder.

[Dan Pashman]

Oh, okay.

[Alison Stewart]

Scared me.

[George]

Anyone who wants it, you can get this online. In fact, I think even the Times has it for free. And it comes from a place called the Store. And it blows minds. Blows minds. And in fact, instead of gherkins, to make it easier, I put just a little bit of relish in with a teaspoon of relish because that gives you the sweet gherkin and it gives you a little of the juice.

[Alison Stewart]

You keep saying it blows your mind. I want to know what blows your mind about it.

[George]

Oh, well, okay. I think just a combination of the flavors. The shallot is important. The red onion is important. Right. Not any other kind of onion. The G wash is that little bit of MSG that gives everything a zing.

[Dan Pashman]

Yep.

[George]

And what else is good? And then a fresh pepper and a fresh red and a fresh green and a fresh tomato.

[Dan Pashman]

Are raw, I assume.

[George]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Pashman]

Okay. And.

[George]

Oh, yeah, so you get heartburn if you have too much.

[Dan Pashman]

Right. But, but, but, but I think I. This sounds. I haven't. I'm not familiar with this side, but it sounds great. I think that one of the things, though, that he's hitting on is, is that there's crunch in this salad. And that, like any greens salad is crunchy. Right. You have greens, you know, and so like, some of the salads in my cookbook, there's like, a lemony tuna one, like, good canned tuna or jarred tuna, and it's got olives in there, but then you also have. You just blanch some green beans, and those add the crunch. There's like, a raw tomato puttanesca that we do with olives in there. Olives are a great pasta salad addition because they add a ton of flavor, and they're meaty, so they make it feel substantial, and it's more than just sort of a gloopy side.

[Alison Stewart]

Thanks for calling, George. Let's talk to Zach from Crown Heights. Hi, Zach. Thanks for calling, all of it. You're on the air.

[Zach]

Good afternoon, Allison and George.

[Alison Stewart]

Ooh, I like your.

[Dan Pashman]

Yes. Yeah. If you don't need to take a day off, Allison, Zach can step in. He's ready.

[Zach]

Okay. My.

[Dan Pashman]

My.

[Zach]

My girlfriend, we went to a barbecue yesterday, and my girlfriend's like, I want to make this pasta salad. She saw it on the Internet, and it was the first good pasta salad I've ever had.

[Dan Pashman]

Wow. You sound like a changed man.

[Zach]

For seconds. It was insane.

[Dan Pashman]

What was it? Yeah, yeah, what was it? What made it so great?

[Zach]

Okay, is that Brody Andy from, like, the New York Times. But okay, so rigatoni. Get rigatoni going. Blender, a whole bunch of spinach and some basil, clove of garlic, miso blitz that. Get the rigatoni going. Like, right when it's al dente, you toss snap peas and frozen peas in.

[Alison Stewart]

There.

[Zach]

And then you slice up some parmesan into, like, kind of thick slices.

[Dan Pashman]

Right?

[Zach]

And you just toss that all together, and it's.

[Dan Pashman]

So the snap peas and the frozen peas, you're dropping those in the boiling water with the pasta right before the pasta is done?

[Zach]

Yeah.

[Dan Pashman]

Like 20 seconds to just, like, blanch it real quick. Then you're draining the water, and then separately, you're blending the spinach, basil, garlic, miso. I mean, it almost sounds like. I would imagine that the spinach and basil and garlic and miso almost form like, a pesto when you blend them up.

[Zach]

They do. Yeah. It's missing a nut, but, yeah, it was just like, there's a textural component. It's fresh, it's springy. It's. It was banging.

[Dan Pashman]

That sounds phenomenal. Pesto pasta salads are really an underutilized. Like, yes, you can do warm pasta on with pesto, but you can also do room temp pesto and pasta. And pesto, literally translated, means, like, to pound. So it's like a mortar and pestle. It's the same root word. And we think of pesto mostly as like a classic Genovese pesto, which is the basil and the pine nuts. But it's kind of like an empty the pantry type of dish. That's how it's truly used in Italy. It's the kind of thing where like, whatever herbs, whatever nuts, whatever cheeses you have, you grind them all together. And so there's an infinite number. In fact, in my cookbook, we have a presto pesto formula that allows you to take any green and any nut and combine them in different ways to turn it into a pesto. So this sounds very delicious to me.

[Alison Stewart]

And Zach, you can call back anytime with that voice.

[Dan Pashman]

Thanks, Zach.

[Alison Stewart]

This says, my mom and dad make exceptional pasta salad with orzo as the pasta. Thumbs up, Thumbs up. Hey, what pastas make the best pasta salad?

[Dan Pashman]

That's a great question. I mean, it's. It's short shapes, first of all, because you want things that are easily stabbable. Oftentimes at barbecues, you might be standing up while eating off a plate. You don't want to start dealing with spaghetti, which already is a hard shape to get a good bite from. So short shapes, very stabbable or forkable, as I would say. And like with any shape, you want nooks and crannies, people think that tubes especially, because in a pasta salad you usually have chunks, right? It's not so soft.

[Alison Stewart]

Chunk factor is important.

[Dan Pashman]

Chunk factor is very important. Thank you. And so you want a shape that is stab able along. So you don't want something super teeny tiny. I mean, orzo can be good if you're eating it with a spoon, but you can't eat that with a fork. The previous one was rigatoni. Yeah, that's good. Nothing against rigatoni, but people think tubes are the best way to hold sauce, and so everyone thinks of tubes. But if you're talking about a pasta salad with something thicker like pesto, and it has peas, it has chunks of vegetables, they're not going to get inside a rigatoni. You're not going to get a piece of tomato halfway into a rigatoni tube. And you're better off with something like a casarecce or a strozza pretti that has nooks and crannies and folds. Or there's one that I love called torchiette. Like a torch. It's almost like a spiral.

[Alison Stewart]

Oh, wow.

[Dan Pashman]

And that one that has a lot more sort of cavities where things can get nestled more easily than with tubes.

[Alison Stewart]

I am talking to the Sporkful host, Dan Pashman. We're talking about pasta salad. It's a small steaks, big opinions. What is your take on pasta salad? You for it or you against it? Have you ever had a good one? Call and tell us about it. 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc this says I'm in love with macaroni salad. The goopier the better. But I have an awareness to know that I am wrong. It's objectively disgusting.

[Dan Pashman]

Look, I want to be clear. I grew up eating plenty of macaroni salad once in a while. Like it isn't sort of a nostalgia food for me. And I'm not against it. I'm just saying that I think that because it's so ubiquitous, it's given pasta salad a bad rap and it's created a very. People have a very limited conception of what a pasta salad can be.

[Alison Stewart]

This is a question for you.

[Dan Pashman]

I'm ready.

[Alison Stewart]

Any recommendations for a pasta salad that doesn't use olives? I have family members who just despise them.

[Dan Pashman]

Sure. I mean, look, I mean, one of the things that I love is fresh tomatoes, a fresh tomato sauce at the height of tomato season. So you, you're grating. Instead of cooking the tomatoes, you grate them and it becomes a sauce and it's just so it's like raw tomato insides but they get all grated up and that becomes your sauce. That once you, if you have good tomatoes, you start with that, you're already 75% of the way there. I love crispy gnocchi. We have a, I do a preserved lemon crispy gnocchi, red onions, and that one also has a grated tomato sauce and then chunks of cherry tomatoes.

[Alison Stewart]

How do you make gnocchi crispy?

[Dan Pashman]

So you just buy the store brand gnocchi, the one in the vacuum sealed pouch, and you throw it in a pan with some olive oil and toss it. You know, toss it and it'll get nice and golden brown on all sides and it turns crispy. And then I would, once it's ready, I would just leave it. I would crisp it up before the guests arrive, leave it sitting in the pan with the heat off, make your dressing and your chopped vegetables and everything and keep that separate. And then just before you're ready to serve, maybe turn the heat back on the gnocchi for a minute or two and give it a toss. But it should still be crispy as long as it's been in the pan. Then you toss it with the components and serve it. And it will still be crispy, and it will slowly lose its crisp as it soaks up dressing. But then it's kind of a beautiful evolution of crispy gnocchi because it gets more flavor as it loses crisp. It's like all four seasons in the lifespan of a crispy gnocchi.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to Mansi from Brooklyn. Hey, Mansi, thanks for calling all of it. You're on the air.

[Mansi]

Hey, how are you guys doing?

[Alison Stewart]

Okay.

[Mansi]

Great. Okay. I'm obsessed with pasta salad, and I just had to call in. I think the best, and no offense to the gnocchi comment, but I think the best is orzo. And I think anytime I've made an orzo salad and brought it anywhere, it's a hit. And I think people forget orzo is actually a pasta. It's just kind of shaped like a grain. But the nice thing about it is that it absorbs flavor, just keeps absorbing. It's so small. And it's one of those things, too, where you can make the pasta salad ahead of time, and while it's sitting in the fridge, it just keeps absorbing that flavor so it tastes delicious even if you made it hours prior. So I highly recommend that. And I have, like, millions of combinations of recipes, and I don't want to overwhelm everyone, but my go to is like your basic vinaigrette. And I also am a big tomato girl, and I add tomatoes, like grating them or just cutting up some grape tomatoes and putting them directly as the orzo is hot will get the absorption process to be a lot faster. So, yeah, if you're trying to have that crazy, weird bite with, like, you know, fusilli or rigatoni, I think orzo is the best way. And you get, like, a good pasta y bite. And, you know, with everything else every time.

[Alison Stewart]

Thanks for calling in. I'm wondering about when you put it together so that it doesn't, like, cross over into the no go zone.

[Dan Pashman]

Well, there's two schools of thought. She brings up a very good point. Look, I hosted a barbecue yesterday. My friend Allison brought an orzo pasta salad. It was delicious. So one school of thought is you want the pasta to stay as al dente as possible, too sinkable, and then you got to keep things separate. The other school of thought is give up on the al dente and just accept that the pasta is going to turn a little bit soft. But in the process, if it's sitting in dressing or some kind of a sauce, it's soaking up flavor. And I don't necessarily know that there's a wrong version. I still want my pasta salad to be a little bit saucy, but I think this is sort of what gets into personal preference and also what's convenient for you. Like, if you're going over to a friend's house, you might not want to have to start mixing components at their house. You might want to just bring it ready to go. I think that goes really well. I also love if you want to along with orzo ditalini or. Or tubetti, which are kind of like little teeny, tiny tubes. They're like. Imagine if you took a bucatini and just diced it up into little tiny pieces. Those are deceivingly sturdy. They look very small, but they have thick walls.

[Alison Stewart]

They're ready.

[Dan Pashman]

Yes. And those can sit in sauce for a while and soak up a lot of flavor while still retaining some toothsomeness.

[Alison Stewart]

What is a pasta shape that will not stand up? We said spaghetti. Is there anything that's just like. Don't buy that one.

[Dan Pashman]

I mean, I'm generally anti bow tie. You know, it's like it never. It's never firm. You know, it just turns to mushroom. It doesn't hold any sauce. It has nothing to catch anything.

[Alison Stewart]

It's cute.

[Dan Pashman]

Yeah, a lot of shapes are cute, you know, but, you know, you want to think about surface area to volume ratio, which, you know, that was the one useful thing I learned at AP biology class all those years ago. You know, the more surface area that the shape has and the less volume, the more it's going to soak up sauce and turn soft. So the. A thicker shape will hold up better.

[Alison Stewart]

This text says. This brought me down memory lane. In college, I used to make pasta salad all the time. It would have zucchini, cherry tomatoes, red onions, olives, yellow squash, red pepper, and a sprinkle of parmesan and Italian dressing. It was a good, inexpensive meal with lots of veggies. My friends love it. May need to revisit that. I love that this says, speaking of shapes, my wife has taken to liking Ronzoni number 325, Creste de Gall.

[Dan Pashman]

Oh, yes, Creste de Gallo. So some people confuse my shape Cascatelli with Creste de Gallo, but they're not the same. They're both great. Creste de Gallo is like. If you imagine. So Creste de Gallo means like rooster's comb. So if you imagine an elbow macaroni but with a ruffly spine going over it. It makes me think more of a stegosaurus, but it's like imagine an elbow macaroni with a rooster's comb going over the top of it. Yeah, that's a fun shape.

[Alison Stewart]

This one says great and easy picnic pasta. Orzo, currants, mint leaves, lemon, olive oil. Done.

[Dan Pashman]

I love that. And listen, this is a great point. Don't sleep on herbs. Just there's almost no herb is gonna mess up your pasta salad. Like whether it's mint, basil, cilantro, unless you have a cilantro averse person in the crowd, parsley, whatever it is that herbaceous fresh flavor, it adds a ton of color to your pasta salad. It makes it look fresh and beautiful. You know, I love herbs in a pasta salad. And one more quick thing I'll say because the previous person was mentioning red onion. So of course a lot of salads have raw red onion, but pickled red onion is one of the easiest things to make. Just thinly slice red onion, salt it and soak it in some white vinegar for as little as 30 minutes. I like to do it for a couple hours, drain it and you have pickled red onion. That's basically good forever. And it adds crunch, it adds acidity. And you put that in any, almost any kind of salad or pasta salad and it's gonna add so much.

[Alison Stewart]

We have more with the Sporkful host Dan Pashman. We are talking about pasta salad. If you want to weigh in, Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it. You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. In studio with me is the sporkful host Dan Pashman. We are talking about pasta salad. It's our small steaks, big opinions. What's your take on pasta salad? Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Let's talk to Mona from NYAC. Hi, Mona.

[Mona]

Hi, Alison. This segment is making my mouth water and it's definitely making my day. Not a low carb one. I can't wait. I want to try every recipe I heard. So mine is simple but I love it. I use the baby little orecchiettes and I make sure that I have cherry tomatoes that are from a farm or homegrown are really good quality because of course the tomato has to taste good. If the rest of it's going to taste good. So I'll just do little baby orecchiettes with baby arugula. And I'll do the tomato, sometimes a red onion, really good olive oil, lemon, and then grated fresh parmigiano. Reggiano. And it's so good.

[Alison Stewart]

Thank you for calling in.

[Dan Pashman]

That sounds great. You know, orecchiette, another great shape for a pasta salad. Very spoonable, very thick and durable, like the ditalini that I mentioned. It's Italian for little ears because it looks like ears. And yeah, arugula, another great one. I would probably because it can be a little bit stringy and chewy raw, even though I do love, I love arugula in all its forms. But after you drain your pasta, add the arugula, raw arugula to it while the pasta is still warm and that will soften it just a little bit. It won't turn it to mush, but it'll soften it just enough and kind of like infuse some flavor into there. And that's a nice move.

[Alison Stewart]

There is a recipe in your book, anything's pastable Italian cafeteria hot dog pasta salad with canned veggies.

[Dan Pashman]

That's right. That's right.

[Alison Stewart]

This is very different than what we've been talking about.

[Dan Pashman]

I know, I know. Well, it's funny because, you know, this whole cookbook is really all about the idea that like, like there's no traditional Italian recipes. It's all like new and different approaches to pasta using ingredients from different cuisines all over the world, not just Italian. This pasta salad with the canned olives and onions and the hot dogs is probably the most authentically Italian recipe in the cookbook. This is a huge dish, especially in, in Rome, in the cafeteria style lunch counters of Rome in the summertime and also many like the beach side. This is like a classic Italian summer dish. Katie Parlo, well known cookbook author and tour guide based in Italy. I worked with her and got, interviewed her for my cookbook and she said people don't realize how much Italians love hot dogs. And this is just, this is like right out of a can, hot dogs. But it works. Let me tell you. A little bit of mayo. I know you're thinking that can't possibly be a real Italian thing, but I'm telling you it is and it's delicious.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to Michelle from Neptune, New Jersey. Hi, Michelle.

Hi.

How are you doing? Well.

My suggestion was using the pinwheel pasta because when you slice all of your little veggies, whatever they May be anything really small. The veggies get in the spokes of the pinwheel.

[Dan Pashman]

Are you shopping like a wagon wheel?

[Alison Stewart]

Yes, exactly. You know how they have the little. Yeah, pasta. Yeah, the little wheel pasta.

[Dan Pashman]

Right, right, the wagon wheel.

[Alison Stewart]

And so. Yeah, exactly. So when you slice your veggies up small or use corn or whatever, you may use celery, tomatoes, anything, they get caught in the spokes.

[Dan Pashman]

So do you have ever have issues with getting your wagon wheel pasta cooked evenly, though? Because I struggle with it being like hard in the center and soft on the outside.

[Alison Stewart]

No, I don't typically. And I usually undercook it just a little bit so that when you add your dressing, whatever type of dressing you want to add, it kind of softens it as well. So I've never really come across that. So I just. But I'd say that suggestion, it works for me.

[Dan Pashman]

Right.

[Alison Stewart]

All right, let's talk to Linda from Long Island City.

Hi, thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.

Linda, are you there?

[Linda]

I'm here. Hi. Can you hear me?

[Alison Stewart]

I hear you. Great.

[Mansi]

Okay, great.

[Linda]

Yeah, I'm actually from she said Bay, but I'm working in Long Island City, so happens. So, yeah. So my. So my pasta concept is basically.

[Dan Pashman]

It.

[Linda]

Started out as a dip, but then I added macaroni and it became like the best barbecue macaroni salad ever. So it's crucial. You have to chop everything or puree. It depends on the consistency you like. But it's portobello mushrooms, lots of garlic. Saute that in a pan with olive oil, start adding a little bit of hot pepper, depending on how picanti you want it. And then you do sun dried tomatoes, which I actually jar. I buy them and I jar them and I have them ready to go in olive oil and garlic. And then I puree that and you just add that. And then you just add parmesan cheese and a lot of parsley, chopped parsley. And it is flaming. So it could work as a dip, like, don't we crackers? Or I recommend doing a penne, like the little mesh mezzepanne, which is really nice. So it is. And then if you want, because that's vegetarian, like you could add chicken.

[Alison Stewart]

Sure.

[Linda]

And you just add the chicken to it. So you take it out of the pan. I use cast iron. And then you cook your chicken in that pan and it absorbs the flavor and it actually cleans the plant. It's salmon. So I think that's like talk about Italian American. I made that one up. It's my invention.

[Dan Pashman]

So I Love it.

[Alison Stewart]

Way to go.

[Dan Pashman]

And just think about the diversity of different dishes we've heard about here, Alison. So look, this is giving me hope for pasta salads.

[Alison Stewart]

This says you didn't mention rotini. Isn't that the best shape and texture in pasta salad to retain dressing?

[Dan Pashman]

So rotini is kind of like a corkscrew esque shape. And you know, honestly, to my, this is one of the few shapes that I think has too much. It's too saucable, it absorbs, it has so much surface area in relation to its volume that it gets overwhelmed by sauce. So yet because as soon as it turns soft, then it's so spirals are too flimsy to really grip anything. And so, yeah, sure, it'll hold a thick tomato sauce, but like pieces, I don't see a pea or a little piece of an actual tomato chunk getting up in there. Getting up in there because the spirals are gonna turn too flimsy, or if they're firm, then that center spine of the shape that's holding it all together is gonna be practically crunchy. So that's a shape that I struggle with. It's tough to get it to cook consistently and tough to get it to hold sauce.

[Alison Stewart]

My friend loves cascatelli. I gave him a box when it first came out, and he's got a little kid and he's like, this is the best thing ever. We love cooking it. So what recipe would you give that person using cascatelli in a salad?

[Dan Pashman]

I mean, any pesto, as I said, pesto is great room temperature as a pasta salad. There's also, there's one in the cookbook that I really especially love. That's a raw heirloom tomato puttanesca. So puttanesca, traditionally a cooked tomato dish with olives, capers, anchovies, a little chili flakes. Instead, we do it with fish sauce and olives and raw. You get good fresh heirloom tomatoes. Grate them, you get that raw tomato sauce. So cool.

[Alison Stewart]

I can't wait to do that.

[Dan Pashman]

It's really. And it's so simple. I mean, like, the sauce is done in five minutes and you get the, the savoriness of the olives and the fish sauce and that, and then the olives, like the meat of the, of the dish. And that'll get into your cascadelli real nicely.

[Alison Stewart]

This says, being Greek American, I am completely impartial to all types of feta cheese. Crumbly, salty, creamy types all work in a pasta salad. I grew up with my mom's combination from the island of limnos of feta and mint and olive oil. Depending on the flavor profile you're going for, you can also introduce some Greek raw honey and cheese into it for certain pasta types made on the island.

[Dan Pashman]

I love that. Yeah. I mean, crumbled feta is phenomenal with pasta. I do think I do. It's a little bit more expensive, but I do recommend buying it in the block in brine as opposed to pre crumbled because I think it will have more flavor that way.

[Alison Stewart]

So what are you cooking besides pasta this summer?

[Dan Pashman]

You know, I like to go into each summer with like one dish that I'm excited to make like that summer's barbecue dish. And I think for this summer, I'm working on something that I'm calling shawarma tacos.

[Alison Stewart]

Shawarma tacos.

[Dan Pashman]

So I love chicken shawarma, which are all kinds of shawarma, which you see all across the Middle East. There's a great company here in New York, family owned, called New York Shook Shuk. They do a shawarma barbecue sauce that I just ordered six more jars of chicken. The shawarma barbecue sauce. Grill that up. And then I get these flour tortillas that I order from this company in Kansas called Caramello. I shouldn't be saying it on air because they're already on a four to six week back order. This guy Ruben makes amazing. It's phenomenal. They come vacuum sealed, you can freeze them, they last forever, but they're insane. And so the flour tortillas, the grilled chicken with the shawarma barbecue sauce, and then like, let people, you know, put out a bunch. It's so fun at a barbecue to put out a bunch of fixings and let people do it as they like. So you got your Israeli salad, you get your tahina, you got your pickles, you got your scoog, which is like a yemenite, spicy yemenite condiment. All those things you put together and let people mix and match. And it's, it's fun, it's interactive, and it's just like every flavor, every texture all at once.

[Alison Stewart]

The Sporkfuls host, Dan Pashman talking about pasta salad. Thanks for coming in, Dan.

[Dan Pashman]

Thanks for having me, Ali.

[Ira Flatow]

This is Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show. Because they know we're driven by a mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.