How do you make a nice cold pasta salad?

[CaviarAndCigarettes]

Please help me! My son will be having packed lunches next year and does not eat bread, wraps, bagels or really any type of bread based product which makes packed lunches a nightmare. We were briefly onto a winner with cold pizza but now he had also gone off pizza!

Pasta is an all time favourite. He will eat the tomato based pasta pots that you buy from the supermarket and will happily eat them cold, but whenever I offer homemade leftover pasta cold it's a hard no.

How do I make cold pasta taste better? Do I cool it after cooking and then add the tomato sauce etc? I can't afford for him to have school dinners next year so I really need to crack this in an affordable way!

I do cold tricolour pasta spirals with loads of carrot,cucumber, radishes, peppers, onions, tomatoes, whatever I have in & then use Kraft fat free vinaigrette, sea salt & fresh black pepper. I do a massive bowl full & then each day ds chooses what he wants adding, either meat, fish, eggs or cheese. Even with the dressing on it keeps 3-4 days in the fridge.

Packet savoury rice is nice as a salad, just add veg & dressing.

Pizza swirls with puff pastry?

My favourite is pasta with mayo, tune, sweet corn & some black pepper. Can also add finely chopped celery/pepper/cucumber/tomatoes for extra veg & colour.

Or, how about mini quiches, or mini savoury muffins.
Spanish omelette.

I wash the pasta under cold water, which cools it and gets rid of excess starch. Then I make into a salad. Pesto and mayo based both work well, I also like it with most salad dressings or just a little olive oil. If I have leftovers from a cooked pasta then I tend to reheat them as the sauce consistency and starch can made it into just a big stodgy lump.

The late great Marcella Hazan has a gorgeous recipe for pasta salad with barbecued veg. Not exactly easy this weather, but you can grill or griddle the veg instead -- peppers, courgettes, onion, tomatoes, sliced and in whatever quantities you need or have.
She cooked the pasta, drained it and added good olive oil while it was still hot, plus some lemon juice or wine vinegar, shedloads of chopped herbs, (parsley i think) black pepper, and chopped garlic.

She cut the grilled veg Into smaller pieces and added it to the pasta mixture while still warm , tossed it all together and served at room temp.
My DS loved it when he was a teenager. He ate just about anything though

Mine always love pesto on their pasta, I stir it through as soon as it's cooked. I use quick cook spirals because the pasta is thinner and the texture's nicer when cold. You can add all sorts to it, cooked ham/chicken, cheese, cucumber, pepper etc.

My daughter often takes hot pasta with sauce in a little flask.

I think cold
Pasta is nicer with the
More expensive pasta unfortunately. I think the cheaper ones are less nice. But that’s tricky if you are on a budget. Although it would still work out cheaper than school dinners.

Plus it’s a while until September so he might come around to other options too.

I sent mine in with a food flask containing a reheated version of dinner from the night before. Whatever it may have been.

I've always really enjoyed Lloyd Grossman sauces on cold pasta, they do a tomato and basil, a tomato and chilli and a tomato and bacon. Could get pricey, but handy in emergencies!

Houmus with chopped veg and bread sticks
Falafel
Cheese and crackers
Rice cakes with ham/ chicken/ cheese
Tapas type lunch (chorizo, salami, Pattatas bravas, olives etc)
Quiche
Soup in a thermos
Frittata
Scotch eggs
Cooked chicken, salad.
Hard boiled eggs.
Potato salad.

Basically any protein (cheese, meat, eggs, houmus) plus a carb (rice cakes, potato salad, crackers, popcorn, flapjack, muffin, pastry on occasion) plus some veg (carrot, cucumber, radish, tomato, olive, peppers) and fruit would work

There are several children at the nursery I work at that have warm pasta in sauce for their lunches, in wide mouthed kid sized thermos. One always has spag bol, another ravioli in cheese sauce and another has pesto pasta (without pine nuts).

I doubt he'll be allowed to take in pesto - you need to check beforehand.

I agree with no such thing as nice cold pasta salad

DS used to take, cheese and crackers and grapes/ sausage rolls/ chopped chicken breast and salad/ boiled eggs and salad/ cous cous/ Spanish omlette/ chicken drumsticks/ cold sausages

Would he eat noodles? My DC like a chicken noodle salad - cooked noodles, strips of cooked chicken finely shredded lettuce or cabbage, grated carrot and sweetcorn with a little soy sauce as a dressing.

They also liked mini tortillas - I made a batch of them in muffin cases and froze them, Popped them in their lunchboxes straight from the freezer and defrosted by lunchtime.