Allergy-Free Pasta Salad Recipe Round-Up

By Kelley Lindberg

Last week, we looked at potato salad recipes that are free from the Top 8 allergens (peanuts, tree nuts, milk, egg, soy, wheat, fish, and shellfish). This week, I stalked the web for the best-looking pasta salads I could find. To make my list, recipes have to eliminate the most common allergens, but definitely keep the flavor! As always, I look for recipes that taste great, look wonderful, and won’t have a single person at your barbecue or potluck party even noticing milk and egg aren’t part of your creation!

Note: If you must avoid wheat or gluten, you’ll want to use gluten-free pasta for these recipes, of course.

Let’s get started.

First, I have to share a Ranch Dressing tip or two. Ranch dressing mix is a tasty addition to pasta salads, but finding a milk-free version is tricky. My local Smith’s grocery store (which is part of the Kroger brand of grocery stores) carries an envelope of mix called “Kroger Party Dip – Ranch,” which is milk-free. I have used it to make ranch dip by mixing it with Tofutti “BetterThan Sour Cream” soy-based non-dairy sour cream—a huge hit at parties. I also mixed it with Vegenaise (egg-free mayonnaise substitute) to make a sauce for a pasta salad the other day. My son declared it was “the best pasta salad you’ve ever made, Mom!” So if you live near a Kroger store (such as Smith’s, King Soopers, or Fred Meyer), check to see if they carry the “Kroger Party Dip-Ranch” mix. (Don’t confuse it with the Kroger Salad Magic Ranch Dressing mix, which contains milk. Sheesh. Don’t these people know they’re just making our lives complicated with all these different versions?)

If you can’t find the Kroger mix in your local store, you’re still in luck. I found a recipe online to make your own Homemade Ranch Seasoning & Dressing Mix, and it’s super easy! (I’m serious. Throw some spices in a blender or spice grinder. Voila! You’re done!) We have Megan, over at her “These Things I Love” blog, to thank for this recipe.

Now, on to some great-looking pasta salad recipes that will perk up that potluck table like nobody’s business:

Italian Pasta Salad: In its simplest form, a good pasta salad consists of 3 things: cooked pasta, some veggies, and a dressing. This recipe from About.com gives you the step-by-steps. It uses a cup of your favorite safe bottled Italian salad dressing, or you can substitute a favorite safe vinaigrette (like balsamic! Yum!).

Easy Vegan Artichoke Pasta Salad: This recipe from About.com is even easier, because you use the oil from a jar of marinated artichoke hearts instead of the salad dressing! Plus I think artichoke hearts always add a little extra class to anything they’re in, don’t you?

Vegan Pasta Salad with Pickles,Vinegar, and Olive Oil: Love that hint of pickle/vinegar flavor? Then you’ll love cooling off with this pasta salad from PopSugar.com that uses a dressing of vinegar, olive oil, and Dijon mustard (and some diced dill pickles for a little extra kick).

Southwestern Pasta Salad
Photo credit: CookinBug at AllRecipes.com

Southwestern Pasta Salad: I’m a fan of all things Southwestern flavored, so this recipe from Allrecipes.com is right up my alley. Its dressing consists of vegetable oil, fresh lime juice, and spices, and it will definitely spice up your picnic! You could also turn this into a main dish by adding some diced grilled chicken or taco chicken (shredded chicken cooked with taco seasoning).

Greek Goddess Pasta Salad: This recipe from AllRecipes.com calls for a bottle of pre-made Greek vinaigrette, and it includes sun-dried tomatoes, avocados, Kalamata olives, a jar of roasted peppers, and other tasty tidbits.  If you can’t find a safe Greek vinaigrette dressing, try this recipe to whip up your own: Absolutely Fabulous Greek/House Dressing. 

Kelley’s Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad: Okay, since my son loved this one so much, I figured I’d better post it.

Kelley's Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 box of pasta, any shape (I used 2 different shapes, to mix things up)
• 2 c. total veggies, such as halved cherry tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes (drained), or lightly steamed veggies such as broccoli, spinach, kale, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, snowpeas, cauliflower, red and yellow peppers, or edamame
• 6 strips bacon
• Ranch dip/dressing mix (1 envelope’s worth, or about 3 T)
• 1 c. safe mayo, such as Vegenaise (there is a soy-free version, if that’s one of your allergens)
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 c. rice or soy milk (or other safe milk)

Directions:

Cook pasta according to directions. If using veggies that you prefer to be lightly steamed, go ahead and steam them. Dice bacon into small pieces and fry. When the bacon is almost done, add the steamed veggies to the bacon so that the veggies take on that bacon flavor, and continue to cook until bacon is crispy enough for your taste. In a small bowl, mix the Ranch dressing mix, safe mayo or Vegenaise, garlic powder, and rice milk. When the pasta is done, drain it and run some cold water over it to stop it from continuing to cook. Then put the pasta in a large serving bowl with the veggies and bacon. Gently stir in the ranch dressing. Serve and enjoy!

My son, who is now an always-on-the-go 16-year-old with a hollow leg, is primarily a carnivore. He thinks vegetables are a conspiracy by mothers world-wide to punish their children for trumped-up grievances. Oh well. There are only a handful of veggies he will willingly eat: artichoke leaves (not the hearts), fried okra (he had to learn to like fried okra or he wasn’t allowed to continue living under my roof), and edamame. I don’t know why edamame made the list, because he refuses to touch any other legume, but I don’t question small victories. So when I made this salad, the only veggie I added was shelled, steamed edamame. That and the bacon made a great combination, and he was happy. So were the other party-goers, so I call that a win.

Who Eats Pasta or Bread in Italy, Anyway?

by Kelley Lindberg


As you know if you read my earlier post about discovering my son is allergic to lupin flour ("Lupin Allergy in Europe"), I was a little worried about how extensive the use of lupin flour is in Europe, since we were headed to Paris and Italy for a two-week vacation.

Well, we’ve now made it there and back safely, but here’s the thing: I’m still not sure how wide-spread the use of lupin flour is in Europe.

We asked about lupin flour in every restaurant we visited in Paris in along Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Unfortunately, most of the restaurateurs didn’t know what ingredients were in their bread because they got their bread from a bakery, and there was no way to check ingredients. Some people didn’t understand what lupin flour was. Others had heard of lupin flour, but just didn’t know if it was in their bread. Because some had heard of it, I can assume that it’s used at least somewhat frequently in Italy, but I really didn’t get a sense of how wide-spread its use is. We didn’t encounter any lupin in the pastas we tried.

The grocery stores near our villa were tiny, with extremely limited selections of pasta and pre-packaged breads. Neither the pasta nor the sandwich bread I found listed lupin flour as an ingredient, but I was able only able to find one or two brands of each. (Sandwich breads mostly had nut warnings – I only found one brand that had no nut warnings.)

Allergy information was generally listed on everything that had labels, so that was reassuring. But anything that came from a bakery was problematic, just as it is here in the United States. That meant we avoided things like pizza (the few places we asked didn’t know what was in their pizza dough, because it came from elsewhere and wasn’t labeled), and I got in the habit of packing my son a sandwich that I made in the villa before we left on all-day outings (after that day in Pompeii when his lunch ended up being a can of Pringles and a soda).

Although lunch stops were challeng-ing, we had much better luck in nice restau-rants for dinner. Maybe it’s because most of the places we ate were family-owned and there was an obvious sense of ownership pride in them, but we found several restaurants where the owners, chefs, and waiters would bend over backwards to make my son’s dinner safe.

My best investment before we left was to buy allergy translation cards from SelectWisely.com. These wallet-sized laminated cards say “I have a life-threatening allergy to…” in whatever language you order. I handed the card to a waiter, then he would take it to the owner/chef, who would invariably come over to my son and carefully talk him through the items they could make safe for him. Sometimes they’d stick with what was already on the menu, but others would suggest combinations of things that weren’t on the menu. They really made him feel special and safe.

When we found a place like that, we tended to go back two or three times, and they would recognize him and welcome him back. He soaked up the royal treatment! The owner-chef at Cucina Casereccia da Vincenzo, on our third visit, offered him a completely new treat for free: octopus and calamari. He was so enamored with this woman who’d been pampering him for days that he tried it and LIKED it. If I had tried to get him to eat octopus anywhere else, I don’t think he’d have tried it. But for this chef who was taking such good care of him, he scarfed it down!

We made it through the two weeks without any allergic reactions. We did limit his exposure by preparing breakfast and most lunches in the villa, and we cooked several dinners in the villa, too. (We didn’t do that just for him. We did it to save money and our waist-lines, too, and because cooking with the fresh produce from the neighborhood market was so much fun -- look at those giant lemons and those baby artichokes!) But when we went out, we relied on those SelectWisely cards to help eliminate accidental contamination.

So despite the fact that he couldn’t eat pizza in Italy (is that legal?), he can’t wait to go back and experience the history, the scenery, and those friendly Italian restaurateurs. His next destination, he tells me, is Sardinia. Guess I’d better start saving my Euros!