Martha Stewart Pasta Salad

Martha Stewart’s pasta salad tosses farfalle with blanched green beans, chickpeas, capers, and fresh basil in a lemony mayo dressing sharpened with red wine vinegar. It feeds 6 to 8 in about 45 minutes.

This version is published on marthastewart.com under the title “Pasta Salad with Green Beans and Basil,” and it leans Mediterranean with the chickpeas, capers and their brine, and a garlic paste mashed right into the dressing. No heavy, gloppy coating here: the mayo is thinned out with acid so the dressing stays light.

Cooling the drained pasta on a baking sheet instead of rinsing it under water is the move that protects the whole salad. Rinsing waterloggs the noodles and washes off the starch that helps the dressing grip, so you end up with slippery bowties sitting in a puddle instead of a coated, cohesive salad.

Martha Stewart Pasta Salad

Recipe by medshi8Course: SaladsCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

6-8

servings

Prep time

25

minutes

Cooking time

20

minutes

Calories

355

kcal

Total time

45

minutes

Bowtie pasta cools flat on a baking sheet to stay dry and starchy, then gets tossed with blanched green beans, chickpeas, chopped capers with their brine, and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano in a garlic-lemon mayo vinaigrette. Serve it at room temperature for the best flavor.

Ingredients

• For the dressing:

• 1 small clove garlic, minced

• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1/2 cup (120ml) mayonnaise

• For the salad:

• 1 lb (450g) farfalle

• 3 cups (about 340g) green beans, sliced and blanched

• 1/2 cup (70g) chopped red onion (soak in cold water 10 minutes for less bite, then drain)

• 3 tablespoons capers, chopped, plus 2 tablespoons brine

• 1 (15 oz / 425g) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

• 1 oz (28g) Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about 1/4 cup)

• 1/2 cup loosely packed chopped fresh basil leaves

Directions

• Make the dressing. Using the flat side of a chef’s knife, mash the garlic with 1 teaspoon salt into a smooth paste. Transfer to a small bowl and whisk in the lemon juice, vinegar, oregano, and mayonnaise. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper.
• Cook and cool the pasta. Boil the farfalle in generously salted water according to package directions, cooking for the longest time listed. Drain without rinsing, then spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Let cool completely, about 20 minutes.
• Toss the salad. In a large bowl, toss the green beans, red onion, capers with brine, and chickpeas with the dressing. Add the cooled pasta and toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper.
• Chill and finish. Refrigerate until ready to serve, up to 1 day ahead. Let stand at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before serving. Toss with the Parmigiano-Reggiano and basil just before bringing it to the table.

Notes

• Boil the noodles for the longest cooking time on the package. Unlike warm pasta dishes, the noodles will not continue cooking in a sauce, so they need to be fully tender before draining.
• Never serve pasta salad straight from the fridge. It is too firm and the flavors are muted. Thirty minutes on the counter fixes both.
• For less raw onion bite, soak the chopped red onion in cold water for 10 minutes, then drain well before adding.

FAQs

Why mash the garlic into a paste instead of just mincing it?

Crushing garlic with salt breaks the cell walls completely and creates a smooth paste that dissolves into the mayo dressing. Minced garlic, even fine mince, leaves tiny pieces that hit you with sharp raw garlic bursts in random bites.

The salt acts as an abrasive that speeds up the process and starts drawing out moisture immediately. You end up with garlic flavor distributed evenly through every spoonful of dressing instead of concentrated in a few unlucky forkfuls. A microplane works too, but the knife-and-salt method gives you more control over the texture.

Why cool the pasta on a baking sheet instead of rinsing it?

Rinsing pasta under cold water washes away the surface starch that acts like glue for the dressing. Without that starch, the mayo slides right off the bowties and collects at the bottom of the bowl.

Spreading the drained pasta on a sheet pan cools it quickly through evaporation and keeps every piece separate so nothing clumps. The starch stays on the surface, ready to grab the dressing when you toss everything together. Twenty minutes flat on the counter is all it takes, and the payoff is a salad where every noodle carries flavor.

What do the capers and their brine add to this pasta salad?

The chopped capers bring tiny pops of briny, almost floral sourness that cut through the mayo and chickpeas. The brine is the secret ingredient: those 2 tablespoons add seasoned acidity to the dressing without thinning it the way extra vinegar would.

Together they keep the salad from tasting heavy or one-note, which is a common problem with mayo-dressed pasta. If you skip the brine, you lose that background tang and the dressing leans too rich. For a summer side with a similar bright, punchy profile, her cucumber salad hits those same tangy notes through a different route.

Can you swap the farfalle for a different pasta shape?

Bowties work well because the folds trap dressing and the flat wings hold up to tossing without getting mushy. Rotini, penne, or fusilli would all perform the same way because they have grooves or pockets that catch the vinaigrette.

Avoid long shapes like spaghetti or linguine, which tangle into clumps and make the salad hard to portion. Whatever shape you pick, cook it to the longest time on the package and cool it on the sheet pan the same way. The shape matters less than the method.

How far ahead can you make this, and how should you store it?

Her recipe says up to 1 day ahead in the fridge, fully assembled except for the cheese and basil. Both go on right before serving because Parmigiano clumps when cold and basil darkens within hours of being cut.

Pull the salad out at least 30 minutes before serving so it comes to room temperature, which softens the pasta and lets the dressing loosen back up. If it looks dry after a night in the fridge, stir in a small splash of red wine vinegar rather than more mayo. Pair it with her buttermilk fried chicken for a full summer spread.