Halloween is just around the corner and let’s face it–Halloween is a holiday where sweets are the main event. When you go to a party you want to stand out and when you think about all the sweets that are on the table, you might stand out by preparing a healthy entrée with a Halloween theme. You will have more people reaching for your dish after they get a sweet tooth or send them a reminder to stop eating so many sweets!
Jack O’Lantern Pasta Salad
This is a fun salad that can be used with colorful pasta, it’s better to buy it pre-colored than to use food coloring, which can be expensive and not very healthy. For this salad you can use an array of different vegetables, the more colorful the better, think Halloween colors, like green, orange, and purple.
Ingredients
- Purple cabbage
- Carrots
- Broccoli
- Vinaigrette, Italian Dressing, or olive oil with salt and lemon
- Cheese
- Cucumber
- Zucchini
- Cherry tomatoes
Think about your pasta for a minute. They sell different sizes and shapes for colorful pasta, even Halloween themed pasta in shapes of bats or jack o’lanterns. Buy ahead of time because these tend to fly off the shelves pretty fast around Halloween season.
Cook your pasta as normal or by the specifications on the package. Transfer the cooked pasta into a spaghetti or pasta strainer to remove any excess water. Some pasta tends to stick if you don’t add oil, so drop a little bit of olive oil and mix it to make sure it doesn’t stick. Let it cool.
In the meantime chop up your raw ingredients. Grate the cabbage and carrots into thin slices. The broccoli can simply be pulled apart or cut into small pieces. You can cut the cucumbers or zucchini and make slices and cut little eyes and mouths to resemble jack o’lanterns.
Once you have everything cut up and your pasta cool, then you can begin assembling your it. Make sure your pasta is cool enough, otherwise it can cook your vegetables and they will lose their crunch. Add everything into a large salad bowl and add your dressing, cheese and mix together. Place some extra cucumbers on top that way your salad can look extra festive.
