Here is a riff on both pasta salad and caprese, the tomato-mozzarella-basil salad that I eat normally when the local tomatoes come into season. I used mini-everything for this recipe: cherry tomatoes, perlini mozzarella and orecchiette pasta. Orecchiette meand “earlobe” which I think is just funny and somewhat appropriate.
Sides
Normally, I stick to a very specific type of potato salad, which is the southern German (Swabian or Bavarian) styles. That for me is the definition of potato salad and yes, we ate it a lot growing up. That said, every once in a while, I will branch out and when I saw a similar recipe to the one that I created here, I thought I would go for it. Who can go wrong with bacon?!? Quite yummy, but definitely remember to serve this one at room temperature as cold bacon fat (which is part of the dressing) isn’t very appetizing.
Lemony Artichoke and Asparagus Pasta Salad
Pasta salad for a lot of people means mayonnaise. For me, that doesn’t always work well. I like going on picnics and I don’t want to have to worry about keeping my pasta salad cold (not to mention that it tastes better when it isn’t too cold). So this one has a Vinaigrette instead, which matches well with the artichoke hearts too.