Pasta salad with gorgonzola and tomatoes
I love all things pasta. And this super easy blue cheese pasta salad with gorgonzola is a great example of how delicious and quick it is. I like to eat it for lunch but it can definitely serve as a dinner as well. Since there is not that much vegetables inside I would include a large green salad when serving this for dinner.
What do you need for this pasta salad with gorgonzola
You need just a few ingredients to get this start, but I will add a few extra ingredients as suggestions later on.
- gorgonzola cheese
- cherry tomatoes
- olive oil
- sun dried tomatoes
- pesto
- capers
- pasta
For making this you can use any pasta shape you like, but I prefer the shorter ones like penne for making this gorgonzola pasta salad recipe.
You start the recipe by cooking the pasta al dente. Rinse under cold water and drain the pasta. You can save some of the pasta water to cream to pasta later, although I find this doesn’t work so well for this recipe. But if you’re serving the pasta warm that would definitely work.
Mixing it all up
Take a large bowl and add your drained pasta to it. Now cut the cherry tomatoes in quarters or halves and add to the pasta. You can use different types of blue cheese here but I prefer either gorgonzola or roquefort. Both will give a flavorful punch to the recipe. You sprinkle the blue cheese crumbles over the pasta and you add all the other ingredients as well. I do cut the sun dried tomatoes smaller and add a couple of tablespoons of pesto to the recipe. I love pesto as a simple way to add flavor to this simple salad. You can see it as a salad dressing. If you’re no fan of pesto you can use olive oil instead.
In addition to the pesto I tend to add a bit of olive oil anyway to make it a little bit smoother.
Additions
Apart from the above mentioned ingredients there are a few additions that would work really well in this pasta salad with gorgonzola. One would be chicken breast. You can bake that until golden brown and add to the salad, making it a gorgonzola chicken pasta salad. Fresh peas are also a favorite of mine to add as well as some chopped up green onions.
An alternative to adding the blue cheese crumbles would be to make a blue cheese dressing instead. To do that you mix the blue cheese with your favorite dressing. I like to use a bit of mayonaise to add the blue cheese to and use a immersion blender to make it a smooth mix. A little bit of lemon juice would be great to add to as well as some black pepper. If you’re a blue cheese lover, you’re going to love this salad as well.
You could also add a bit of crispy bacon or make it into a spinach gorgonzola pasta salad. The spinach can either be raw or cooked.
The salad keeps really well in an airtight container and the pasta mixture can also be added to a green salad to give it a vegetable boost. I like to pair it with spinach as I mentioned above but arugula would also work really well. All in all this is a really versatile pasta salad recipe that adapts to your wishes easily!
Also check these delicious recipes with gorgonzola or pasta:
- Tomato soup with gorgonzola cream
- Tomato tart with puff pastry and gorgonzola
- Pasta with broccoli pesto
Pasta salad with gorgonzola and tomatoes
Ingredients
- 75 gr penne
- 50 gr tomatoes
- 50 gr gorgonzola crumbled
- 2-3 sundried tomatoes in oil
- 1 tsp capers
- 2 tbsp pesto
- 1 red onion finely sliced
- pepper
- salt
- Bring water to the boil for your pasta and cook according to pack instructions. Drain and rinse with cold water.
- Chop the fresh tomatoes and the sundried tomatoes and add them to the pasta
- Make a sauce of the capers, pesto and the finely sliced onion and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the sauce to the pasta and crumble the gorgonzola on top.
Nutrition Information per portion
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
O and for the salad… I tossed together gorgonzola, tomatoes (dried and fresh) and for the sauce capers, pesto and a little bit of red onion chopped finely. Delicious!
