This fragrant saffron pasta salad combines small pasta shapes with toasted almonds, currants, yellow pepper, and fresh parsley, mint, and coriander. A warm dressing of olive oil, saffron, garlic, lime juice, honey, cumin, and coriander gives the salad a distinctive balance of sweet, citrusy, aromatic, and gently spiced flavors. Served chilled, it works well as a light meal or as an accompaniment to grilled or barbecued foods.
Fragrant Saffron Pasta Salad
Description
This fragrant saffron pasta salad combines small pasta shapes with toasted almonds, currants, yellow pepper, and fresh parsley, mint, and coriander. A warm dressing of olive oil, saffron, garlic, lime juice, honey, cumin, and coriander gives the salad a distinctive balance of sweet, citrusy, aromatic, and gently spiced flavors. Served chilled, it works well as a light meal or as an accompaniment to grilled or barbecued foods.Ingredients
Directions
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Cook the pasta in plenty of lightly salted boiling water for a few minutes less than the package instructions indicate.
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Rinse the cooked pasta thoroughly with cold water and drain well.
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Transfer the drained pasta to a large serving bowl.
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Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat.
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Add the saffron, flaked almonds, currants, and crushed garlic.
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Cook gently, stirring frequently, until the almonds are a rich nutty brown.
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Remove the saucepan from the heat.
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Stir in the lime juice, honey, ground cumin, and ground coriander to make the dressing.
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Pour the warm dressing over the pasta.
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Gently fold in the yellow pepper, parsley, mint, and fresh coriander until evenly distributed.
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Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
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Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour to allow the flavors to develop.
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Serve chilled, garnished with fresh coriander leaves.
Nutrition Facts
Servings 4
- Amount Per Serving
- Calories 350kcal
- % Daily Value *
- Total Fat 10.0g16%
- Saturated Fat 1.2g6%
- Sodium 25mg2%
- Total Carbohydrate 57.0g19%
- Dietary Fiber 5.0g20%
- Sugars 15.0g
- Protein 10.0g20%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily value may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
Note
Use small pasta shapes so the dressing, currants, almonds, and herbs are distributed evenly throughout the salad.
Orzo may be used and works particularly well because of its small rice-like shape.
The salad is a suitable accompaniment to barbecued or grilled chicken or lamb.
Freezing is not recommended because it can adversely affect the texture of the cooked pasta, pepper, and fresh herbs.
The original Italian cuisine classification was removed because the surviving recipe does not provide sufficient support for a specifically Italian origin; the reference to orzo alone does not establish the cuisine.
The vegan classification was removed because the recipe contains honey. The recipe is vegetarian.
The grilling and blending method classifications were removed because neither technique is used to prepare the salad.
The original nutrition values were clearly incomplete, reporting only 44.2 calories and zero carbohydrate despite containing 8 ounces of pasta, currants, almonds, honey, and other ingredients. Nutrition has therefore been replaced with an estimated per-serving calculation based on four servings.
