Pesto Pasta Salad

Do you like regular pasta salad? You know, macaroni drowning in mayo and mustard? I don't. Pasta and mayo tastes like mayo which makes me feel so gross. But pasta salad emerged during the great depression as a way to use a lot of cheap food with a little expensive food so the whole family could have some expensive ham while filling up on the cheap stuff. I've never had pasta salad with ham in it so maybe I would enjoy that.

But anyways, when you are working at the mall on Black Friday, you know the crowds are way too big to ever get in and out of the food court in 30 minutes. So Bath and Body Works had a potluck so it's poor associates don't starve to death. My contribution was this pasta salad. Because pasta is cheap. I found a recipe on the internet for a pasta salad that used pesto sauce instead of mayo. I took that inspiration and made my own pasta salad recipe. I doubled this recipe and got 16-20 servings of pasta salad. That's less than a dollar a serving! See? Cheap! You could add some cubed, cooked chicken to make it a meal. The girls at work really loved it. I divided the leftovers up into smaller containers to make great meals that can go to work.

Pesto Pasta Salad (Inspired by this recipe)

• 1 lb pasta (I used penne but you could use cavatappi, farfalle, fusilli, or macaroni if you would like.)
• 2 cups peas, cooked and drained
• 8 oz. pesto sauce (I used bottled sauce but you could make your own.)
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, quartered
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water until pasta is cool. Drain thoroughly.
2. Toss pasta with peas, tomatoes, and sauce until well coated. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 4 hours. If you make it ahead of time like I did, the pasta will soak up all of you pesto so either wait to to add the pesto or add a couple of extra tablespoons of olive oil to keep it moist.