Chicken Pasta Salad

A chicken pasta salad among friends and a last minute Super Bowl toss together that everybody loved so much they cleaned their plates. In fact the way our team was playing it seemed people were more interested in the food then they were the game.

But food tops football in my book any day.

Hi, I’m and while I was out visiting my girlfriend Judy and her husband Gary during Super Bowl, they invited Jeff and I to watch the game at their friends house. Of course Judy also volunteered my cooking and told me half an hour before the game that I was making a pasta salad.

OK… Time to hustle and toss something good together!

I scrambled through Judy's refrigerator and dug up a handful of ingredients and some orechetti pasta I had bought earlier that day for dinner the following night. Good enough to use for the pasta salad though. I just happen to buy some pretty good mozzarella cheese as well and she had some chicken breast so I cooked that up to add to the chicken pasta salad.

I always take a picture of the fresh ingredients for a couple of reasons. To show you all that only fresh stuff goes into my Italian pasta recipes and the second reason is to help me remember what I put in the recipes…

:o)

CHICKEN PASTA SALAD INGREDIENTS:

1. 1 lb orechetti Pasta
2. 2 large chicken breasts, grilled, boiled, or broiled.
3. 2 cups diced mozzarella cheese
4. 2 cups grape tomatoes cut in half
5. One bunch of baby asparagus cut in 1 inch pieces
6. One bunch of Italian parsley, chopped
7. Olive oil, pored freely
8. Salt and Pepper to taste

CHICKEN PASTA SALAD INSTRUCTIONS:

I use the term cooking instructions lightly because there is very little cooking involved.

I filled a pot of water for the pasta and another for the chicken. Boiling the chicken helped keep it lean. We were in California and everybody out there is into lean. Then I put the asparagus in a sauté pan and put enough water just to cover the asparagus. Bring the asparagus to a boil and remove right away and rinse in cold water until cool. This keeps them crisp but tender enough to be tasty.

While the pasta and the chicken are cooking you can coarsely chop the Italian parsley. Then cut the grape tomatoes in half. Now you can cube the mozzarella cheese and cut the asparagus into one inch bite size pieces.

Drain and rinse both the chicken and the orechetti until cool and set aside as well. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.

Then I mixed everything together and pronto! My Super Bowl pasta salad with chicken turned into a last minute delight.

Vivere, Amare, Ridere e Mangiare Bene
Live, Love, Laugh and Eat Well!

Do you have a pasta recipe to share? Just like this chicken pasta salad recipe I will post it right here on this site for a whole page dedicated to your Italian pasta recipe.