Make-Ahead Pasta Salad: Tortellini, Zucchini, Roasted Garlic, Basil, and More | Recipe Drop | Food52

It's beautiful. Thanks. I love that it's thin. The mandolin. Yeah. My favorite tool. That's really good. Oh my gosh. Thanks, guys. It's such a classy dish. Hey, everyone. I'm Nia, and welcome to today's episode of Recipe Drop, where we're going to make a cold zucchini and tortellini salad. It's really easy, and it's a really great make-ahead recipe, which I personally really like, because I love having recipes that I can just put in the fridge and kind of eat throughout the week. The first thing I'm going to do is roast the garlic, then I'm going to boil the tortellini, marinate the zucchini, and then we'll toss it all together into a nice salad. You don't technically need to make roasted garlic for this recipe. You can just use unroasted garlic, but I find that it's a lot more mellow, and it also just adds a really nice kind of sweet and nutty flavor. So to make the roasted garlic, I've preheated the oven to 350 degrees. This is only about a fourth of a head of garlic, mainly because I'm only going to use about three or four cloves. If you feel like you could use the roasted garlic for something else as well, then I would just roast the whole thing. So I cut off the little tip, and I'm just going to drizzle on a little bit of olive oil, and then sprinkle it with a little bit of salt, and then wrap it up. And this is going to go in the oven for about 45 minutes until it's really nice and soft, smells nutty, and is a little bit golden brown as well. So here I have a big pot of salted water that I just brought to a boil. And now I'm going to cook a pound of cheese tortellini. I tested this recipe out with a few different types of tortellini. The first time I made it, I made it with spinach tortellini. The second time, I used tricolor tortellini, which I thought looked really pretty. But this time, I'm just using regular. So this is going to boil for about five minutes, or every package says something different, so just make sure to look on the back of the tortellini package. Here I have a little bit of roasted garlic that I pre-roasted. I feel like I don't make roasted garlic enough. I always forget how good it is. But you can see it's slightly golden brown, and when I press on it, it just pops right out. So in the recipe, I say to use three to four. You can obviously add more if you want more of a garlic flavor or use less as well. But as I was saying, roasting the garlic kind of mellows down the garlic flavor, so it's not going to be as pungent and strong as if we were to use four garlic cloves. The other great thing about roasting the garlic is you don't need a garlic press. You also don't need to chop the garlic, and you don't need to grate it. I just take the back of a wooden spoon or any spoon and just mash it. It's super convenient and a little cleanup. Are you as passionate as Cesar about pre-peeled garlic? I would never buy pre-peeled garlic, never. Is that what he said to you? Yeah, he hates the idea of buying pre-peeled. The pre-grated garlic or the minced garlic? My dad used to buy a lot of the pre-grated or pre-chopped, and it has a different flavor. It just does. To this bowl of mashed garlic, I'm going to add five tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. All right, tortellini's done. I'm going to come and drain it over here. Yeah, it smells really cheesy. I am going to give it a little drizzle of olive oil just so that they don't stick together as they cool. To the dressing, I'm going to grate in all the zest of this lemon, which I feel like is usually between one and two tablespoons depending on the size of the lemon. But lemon zest is one of those things that I almost never measure out because a little extra is probably only going to make it better. Even though we are adding a lot of lemon juice as well, the zest just helps to add that extra bit of brightness that I think that this dish really needs. For this recipe, I'm actually using these Miyabi knives, and this is their classic chef's knife. What I really like about this is it has a birch wood handle. It's pretty light, and it feels really well balanced in the hand. I just think it's really important if you're cooking a lot in the kitchen to invest in a knife that is high quality. They stay sharp for a really long time, which I really love, and they come in a set, which is even better. Now I'm adding the juice of the whole lemon. This is usually about two tablespoons per half, so about four tablespoons. Now I'm adding two teaspoons of diamond crystal kosher salt. This is a half teaspoon measurement, so I'm adding four. Because remember, we're marinating two whole zucchinis, and then it's also going to be the salt to flavor all the pasta that we just cooked. Then I'm going to add a decent amount of freshly cracked black pepper. Ooh, this is a size too big. This pepper grinder has all these different sizes, which I think is my favorite part about it. But for this recipe, I want slightly smaller pieces of pepper. I'm going to give this a mix and just break up all that roasted mashed garlic on the bottom. I'm going to set this aside, and we are going to slice the zucchini. I like to use a mandolin just because I want the zucchini slices to be really, really thin. But I'm going to see. Sometimes it can be hard to know exactly how thin something is going to be just by looking at the mandolin. So I'm going to test it out first. Yeah, that's pretty good. No, this is good. The great thing about this recipe, too, is that if you want more zucchini, or if you have an extra zucchini laying around, too, you could just add a third as well. I feel like zucchini is one of those vegetables that I often don't really know what to do with, or I feel like I have to get a little bit more creative. So I feel like pasta is usually my go-to. You also did zucchini bread recently. True. Zucchini bread is probably my go-to. But what's really nice here is that zucchini is primarily, I think it's like 90% water or something like that. So when you add it to the marinade, the salt in the marinade is going to draw out some of that water that's in the zucchini and add liquid to the marinade as well. All right, in with all the zucchini. I'm going to stir to coat all the zucchini, and I'm going to let it sit and marinate for about 10 to 15 minutes until the zucchini has gone really nice and soft and has almost started to curl up a little bit. And this is nice because it just makes it so you don't actually have to cook it. So the zucchini has sat for about 10 minutes, and you can see it's kind of starting to fold up, and as the moisture from the zucchini is going out into the marinade, the marinade and the seasonings and salt is going into the zucchini. Osmosis? No. Something like that. Today's actually a science lesson. Today's a science lesson. Now I'm going to toast some pine nuts. And when I was developing this recipe, I was deciding between pine nuts and pumpkin seeds, but I think I prefer pine nuts just in general, and I think they also obviously go really well with basil too. Was there a reason you chose the pine nuts? I think mainly just because I tried them both. I don't know. I think it just felt more right with the pine nuts. So I'm just going to toast these until they're kind of nice and golden brown for about two to three minutes, and you want to make sure to just keep an eye on them because nuts in general will brown and get toasty very quickly. They're getting a little toasty, so I'm going to transfer them to a little bowl. Here I also have a handful of basil that I'm going to chop. I say about a third of a cup of chopped basil, but it's also another one of those things that I almost never measure. For some reason, tortellini always makes me think of my dad. I don't know why. I feel like he just used to make it for us so much growing up. Tortellini is like an objectively bad pasta. I kind of agree. What does that mean? I don't know. It's just like dad's like it. It's like others filling in it too. I know. That's what I feel like it's like. My dad's just like, okay, it's easy to feed the kids. It has stuff in it already. Now I'm going to add the pasta to this bowl. This is one of my favorite brands that we sell, East Fork. I feel like with food, they have so many different colors and they always look really good in photos, which I like. Wait, I meant to add this to this bowl actually. This is my serving bowl. If you have a big enough serving bowl, then you could just make the marinade in the serving bowl and just make the whole salad there. But this is a little bit too small to mix. I feel like the tortellini is going to go over the sides. I'm going to add most of the pine nuts. I'm going to save a few for the end. Also, most of the chopped basil. And now I'm going to grate in about three-fourths of a cup of Parmesan. It's kind of a lot, but I think it's kind of what makes the dish. I definitely prefer like a tortellini over ravioli. I'm not a huge fan of like the ricotta fillings. I think I used to really like the chicken when I was younger, but I don't know why it kind of wears me out now. I don't know why. I can't explain it. I feel like I've kind of been getting like the chicken ick recently, though. It's real. All right, what do you guys think? Does that look like two-thirds of a cup of parm? Sure, a little more? Why not? It might not be completely cool, but it's fine. Again, when I was testing this another time, it was a little too hot and the cheese started melting. And I didn't stir it quick enough, and then I kind of ended up with these like cheese clumps, which is fine. But one thing I really like about it is like when you stir it, you can kind of see that the zucchini bunch up and almost curl. And I just think it looks really pretty when they kind of fold up. Really good. Once it's all assembled, you can always add more pepper or salt or more basil or whatever you want. And you can also play around with herbs. So you could use mint instead of basil. You could use pumpkin seeds, as I was saying, and obviously different types of tortellini. And you could also use summer squash, like the yellow summer squash, instead of zucchini as well. So I would say if you are making this ahead, it would keep in the fridge for probably three to four days. Oh, I wasn't sure if this was going to fit, but I think it all is going to fit. I think the benefit of using just plain cheese tortellini too is that it contrasts really nicely with the toasted pine nuts and the green zucchini and the green basil. I'm going to finish it off with more parm and a bit more basil. And then the last of the pine nuts. If you had more lemon, you could also finish off with some lemon zest too. Okay, so I know a lot of people actually ask us what we do with all the food that we make. And the best thing about working at this office is that there's so many people here to actually come and taste all the food. And we have a Slack channel called Come and Get It, which is the best Slack channel to ever exist, where we just upload all the food and then people just come and get it. So, yeah, I think that's what I'm going to do. Here are the other things that we made today. Cesar made some, yeah, potato, zucchini, and salad. All right, I'm going to hit send now. Come and get it. Paul's over there. Paul's eager. All right. Come and get it. Yeah, I feel like by the end of the day, everybody's just using their hands. So are you guys having any? Yeah, go for it, please. I'm like, are we saying grace? Should I put a lot so it looks prettier? Is the zucchini cooked? No, it's marinated. It's beautiful. Thanks. So, yeah, the zucchini is marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, and roasted garlic, pepper, salt. And then there's pine nuts and Parmesan in there. And then it kind of sits and gets all, like, soft, goes out. And I don't usually like these. Really? Yeah. Thanks. I love that it's thin. Yeah. Thank you. The mandolin. That's really good. Thanks, guys. The girlies do love tortellini. Says Lauren. It's such a classy dish. Thank you. Thanks for watching. If you want the recipe, you can find it down below in the description. Like, comment, and subscribe. And we'll see you in the next video. Bye.