I'd love to hear your easy pasta salad/buffet dishes ideas :)

[ikeaismylocal]

I am getting married this summer and we putting together a buffet ourselves.

I was wondering if anyone had any easy but yummy pasta/couscous/potato salad recipes that we would idelaly be able to make the day before.

Thank you!

Ah this is totally one of those things where I make something and think, this will make a great buffet dish! And when asked, I can never remember...

But, an easy couscous dish is roast Mediterranean vegetables (Aubergines, peppers, red onion) with feta or grilled halloumi cubes (with or without couscous actually)

If you have a food processor you can make your own hummus to serve alongside.

Also lots of dishes of olives, sun dried tomatoes with mozzarella cubes, that sort of thing, I always find it fills up spaces around buffet dishes.

I love buffets. I also find its easier to make all the dishes according to one theme (Italian, Thai, whatever). I often cut up quiches, frittatas and Greek spinach pies into bite sized squares.

Your wedding sound brilliant, by the way!

Thank you for the ideas! The vegtables and couscous sounds delish!

The main food will be smörgås tårta (sandwhich cake) which is a traditional Swedish dish, www.pinterest.com/saraharva1118/smorgas-torta/ we will also have gravad salmon and some cold meats and some pies, I love the idea of a theme but I don't really want to go with a Swedish theme, maybe our theme can be "around the world" as we have so many international friends and we are from different countries.

I am very fond of olives, sun dried tomatos and mozzarella, I must get practising some didhes :)

Ooh I loooove the Swedish cake!! A friend made it for me in Finland once. Such a perfect summer dish.

Around the world sounds great. How many people are you having?

I am loving couscous salads at the moment. So quick.

Cook couscous (normally I just cover in enough boiling water to just cover the couscous and cover bowl with a plate).

Chop up tomato, red onion, pepper, blanche and deskin some broad beans. Then fluff up the couscous in a bigger bowl with a fork and add lots of lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper. Add the chopped salad stuff and a massive handful of chopped parlsey and mint. Then crumble a block of feta over the top. Delish.

It's going to be around 100 people (eak!!) We are buying in meat/pies/fish and we are going to have pickled herring with hard bread and also salami, ham and pate so it is really just the salads that we need to plan, we will have time in the morning but I'd like to be able to get it done the day before if possible.

Thank you for that idea free :) Can you cook couscous in large quantities?

A couple of very quick salads are
beetroot, buy the plain ready cooked but not in vinegar type, (often vacuum packed in supermarkets) dice them, put in a serving bowl, make a dressing with plain yoghurt pepper etc to your taste, spoon over the beetroot and add some chopped chives or spring onions to garnish.

Mushroom, buy some fresh small tightly closed mushrooms, slice them very thinly, add some crushed garic, toss in lemon juice and mayonnaise or yoghurt.

Make a Greek style dressing with finely chopped onions garlic and herbs and tomatoes simmered together (you can do this part two or three days beforehand) cook some green beans or courgette -don't over cook them. Stir the dressing into the beans, serve at room temperature.

Mixed bean and chickpea salad is also a good buffet dish.

Yesterday I roasted peppers and onions in the oven, then added to couscous with a chilli and garlic sauce, we had with olive and soft cheese stuffed chilli peppers. It was lovely and I have just had the leftovers equally lovely. It would be easy to do couscous in large quantities and will tell you on packet the ratio's. A little couscous once soaked goes a long way. Your wedding sounds fab

Yes - definitely possible to cook couscous in huge quantities (that reminds me of the superb French film Coucous). Whatever your quantity is, as the pp above said, just cover with boiling water. You just need to work out the right ratio of Coucous to water. I am crap at this as I never measure anything but I normally just pour enough water so the level of water is about 1cm above the coucous. I followed the same technique for various quantities. I'm sure other posters will have better ideas.

Provided you have a large enough container you should be able to do this with any quantity.

I attempted buttonbee's recipe for dinner, it was lovely! The only problem was that ds scoffed all his feta and then shouted "MORE MORE MORE MUMMY MORE!!!" pointing at my plate. Thank you for all the tips!:)