Cold Pasta/Rice flavour recepies

[RosieC]

Does anyone know any good recipes for pasta/rice that will be served cold. I'm looking for flavouring ideas and trying to avoid buying the pre-made mixes where you buy the rice/pasta with a flavouring powder and just add water and cook it up.

I don't like bell peppers which lots of them seem to contain when I search for these sorts of things, also don't like sweetcorn which seems a common ingredient.

So... anyone want to share their favourite recipes?

[Lana]

Pasta salads come to mind Just toss cooked pasta with some cooked veggies, like broccoli, carrots, or some raw ones, like baby tomatoes, cucumbers, chopped spinach. You can add some cooked chopped meet to your salad, too. For a dressing I'd combine some olive oil, mustard, maybe a touch of mayo, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and you're good to go!
Rice goes well with raisins, mint, tomatoes, and cucumbers, too. Maybe some chopped nuts. Ok, I"m hungry now

[camille1585]

If salads are what you're after, I have a recipe for a type of french 'salade niçoise'.
Rice,onion, avocado, black olives, tuna, hardboiled eggs. A a red wine vinaigette as the dressing (mustard, salt, pepper, vinegar, olive oil).

I also have a recipe for a cold pasta-pesto salad if you are interested. Tasty, but very strong.

[Mira-Claude]

You could always cook some pastas and chicken, let them cool down, add a pesto of you choice (I personally like the sun dry tomatoes ones) throw in some green onions, carrots, crushed garlic, pepper, olives if you like them (I don't), feta cheese is good in there too, little grape tomatoes (I love the yellow ones), mushrooms would be nice too (no one here eats them if I put them in so I don't) and cucumbers are always a nice touch.

Good ideas cold salads.... hummm!

[RosieC]

Oooh, yummy. Yeah basically looking for savoury rice/pasta and pasta/rice salads.

Since changing job I've started eating mid-day again. I never used to eat except in the evening. (Yeah, yeah, I know that's really bad for me!) But the change in routine has suddenly made me hungry around midday. I'm getting board with the stuff I've been having so far and fancying some pasta/rice mixes, especially as the weather's getting warmer.

I forgot, also looking for flavourings for couscous. I just add lemon juice and parsley at the moment, which is nice but looking for some variety. I like flavoured couscous instead of potatoes with my main meals at home, but want to make my own flavours as it's too expensive to buy the ready flavoured ones.

Anyway, I'm feeling inspired with some of those ideas. Unfortunately I have to avoid pulses and green veg (forgot to say that above) as I can't digest them properly. Finding the right dressing is something I'm not experienced with as I've long avoided salads, so I'll try the ones you've suggested. (Lettuce is one of those things that I can't eat and most salads in the UK contain that, took me a long while to work out which part of 'salad' made me feel ill).

[taulmaril]

For pasta, try yougurt mixed with mustard, olive oil and honey.

Ciao.

[Discus]

We often used to have "rice salad" when I was a kid - make a basic vinaigrette (enough to coat your rice) and toss with small cubes of cheese/ham/olives/gherkins/tomato/herbs/etc to your taste.

You can do exactly the same with pasta too; sometimes mixing a little mayo in with the vinaigrette can be quite nice with the pasta (and works a treat with potato salad).

According to my fiancée, I make good couscous. I usually serve it hot, but there's no reason you can't eat it cold. I usually do about a cup of couscous to a cup of boiling water. To the boiling water, I usually add various spices (one, several or all of cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cumin) and a tbsp of olive oil - you don't need much spice, probably less than 1/4tsp, but you can adjust to taste. Once the water is all absorbed, I stir in a generous Tbsp or two of butter (stops it sticking together) using a fork to separate the grains. To this I usually add some raisins/sultanas, and often some nuts (slivered almonds and pine nuts work well, as do cashews). If you like hot food, some chilis work quite well. Lemon zest/juice would work well too.

I notice you say you don't have a lot of experience with dressings; my various modifications of the family "secret recipe" for a vinaigrette essentially come down to:
1/4-1/2tsp marmite
1 tsp mustard (german or french; dijon works well)
pinch salt
splash milk (optional)
generous dash Lea&Perrins Worcestershire sauce
generous pinch mixed herbs
- mash these together to make an evenly coloured paste
add 1.5-2 tbsp of vinegar (I prefer balsamic, but malt or spirit or apple cider all fine)
mix well
add 2-3 tbsp oil (I prefer olive, but sunflower or whatever you have works).
mix well.

Toss salad in just prior to serving (although non-leaf salads can cope far better with sitting in dressing).

You can of course adapt this to your particular taste or dietary requirements by adjusting things!

I sometimes add about a tbsp of soy sauce and/or lemon juice, depending on how I feel on the day.

[cbuchman]

Try searching epicurious.com It has lots of recipes and you can search pretty easily, though not for things that a recipe doesn't have.

Am old standby is elbow macaroni with diced sweet onion (can you eat that?) and a small amount of mayo to hold it together. Also consider couscous with beans.

[nenella]

I often make a cold couscous salad. Cook the couscous and leave to cool then add diced cooked and raw veg. I usually use carrots, peas, chickpeas, corn, green beans, raw tomatoes, cucumber.. really whatever is at hand... Beetroot is also nice except needs to be eaten quickly as otherwise colours the whole thing pink. I dress with olive oil, salt and pepper. Often I will also add tuna out of a can. My family ask me to make them this all the time in summer.

[RosieC]

Thanks everyone for the ideas.

I developed my own simple flavoured couscous which isn't so much a salad as a flavoured one to replace potato in meals. I use chicken stock, whole grain mustard, finely chopped ginger, fresh lemon juice, and chopped basil, parsley and sometimes a bit of lemon thyme.

The salad ideas are helping me develop ones that I can take to work, still developing the ideas at the moment but have had some really good experiments