DIY: Asian Pasta Salad

This pasta salad is very easy to make with regular ingredients from your grocery store. After one bite this will become your new party go-to-recipe.


Asian Pasta Salad
Lou Crandall, Savory Catering
Makes 8-10 servings

Ingredients
 Salad:
2 cans (30 oz total) mandarin oranges, drained
2 cups chicken breasts
1 bag (16 oz) bowtie pasta
1 bag (6 oz) Craisins
1/2 cup fresh chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley
1 bunch green onions, chopped on the diagonal
1/4 cup raw (untoasted) sesame seeds
6 oz honey roasted peanuts
1 1/2 bags (15 oz) fresh baby spinach OR cooked edamame

  Dressing:
3/4 cup teriyaki sauce
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
6 TBLS sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3/4 cup sesame oil (not sesame-flavored oil)

Directions
Drain Mandarin oranges, set aside.
Put raw chicken breasts onto a sheet pan, uncovered, and roast in oven at 450 degrees until an internal temperature of 145 degrees in the thickest part of the meat. Remove from oven, cover tightly with foil and allow to rest for 15 mins.
Put ice and water in a large bowl and set aside. Cook pasta according to package until al dente. Immediately immerse pasta in the ice-water bath after cooking to stop the cooking process. Set aside.
In a blender or food processor, mix together the teriyaki sauce, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. With the blender running, slowly drizzle in the sesame oil to combine and emulsify with the other ingredients. Set aside.
When the chicken has finished resting, uncover and slice into large cubes. Cool to at least 40 degrees in the fridge.
Combine all ingredients except spinach (edamame can be combine at this time), peanuts, and dressing. Store in fridge until service, adding the other ingredients.

Tip
It is very important to immerse the bowtie pasta in cold water after cooking. This stops the cooking process. Bowtie pasta is quite fragile after being cooked.
If salad is not being served the same day, then refrigerate all ingredients until ready to use. This can be prepped up to 2 days if nothing is combined.
Add spinach last so it doesn't become limp and soggy.

Fall in Love with Pasta Salad

Let's face it, we've all tasted some UN-appetizing pasta salad in our time, maybe even been the culprit in making it! Perhaps some of us are disenchanted by too many lack luster, ugly, mushy pasta salads. (I definitely used to fit in this category)

That ends now.

Chef Lou makes various delectable pasta salads sure to change your mind and make you hungry for more. One of these new breeds of pasta salad is our Asian Pasta Salad.

Asian Pasta Salad

The salad has bowtie pasta, craisins, mandarin oranges, honey roasted peanuts, sesame seeds, chicken bits and spinach.

We've served this as a side for a corporate lunch, at a banquet, and just recently as an appetizer!

We add fresh spinach last to keep it fresh and crunchy. We also blanch our pasta as soon as it finishes cooking to keep it from getting mushy and broken up.

When serving it as an appetizer we change a couple of things:

• We change the bowtie pasta to ditalini pasta
• Add some bright green edamame and use less spinach
• For plating we add crunchy rice sticks and black sesame seeds.
• Serve it on an Asian spoon

Each spoon is individually arranged with rice sticks and a diagonally-cut scallion

Then for the buffet we either serve it on a tray or on our cupcake stand. It sure is one great tasting appetizer!

Elegance, Lace, Pearls and Grace

Within our team of wedding professionals, we have a presentation designer who designs the look of the presentation of the food. Whether you're having a plated dinner or buffet-style appetizers, our tables are decorated to match your style, colors, and theme. Each table scape is personalized to the event and includes many personal touches.

It's all in the details

At our our most recent wedding, the bride wanted a very feminine elegance. We incorporated a lot of shiny silver and glass, crystal, white, soft pinks, candlelight, and clean lines in the buffet.

The food even matched the theme: beautiful presentation, sophisticated flavors and elegant displays. We served our pork crostini, mini potato bites, Asian pasta salad on an Asian spoon, a bubbly blue raspberry mocktail and lemon-flavored water.

We love HEIGHT on our buffets. See how many levels we incorporate.

We used a sheer pink ribbon for the detail on these candles; our designer opted for a knot instead of a bow.

The candles were displayed on these beautiful candlesticks. The elegant lace, pearl, and flower motif went well with the theme of the buffet.

Candlelight makes a BIG DIFFERENCE on a buffet! We had a variety of floating tea lights and votives in different vases. We also added details like shiny crystal and clear rocks to the vases.

This cupcake stand does more than hold cupcakes! We used it to serve our Asian Pasta salad on individual spoons. This is a fun feature for guests to get their food- we'll be using this a lot more!

We also took the opportunity to add candlelight on every tier. I love the way it looks.

We served our NEW Bubbly Blue Raspberry Mocktail on our signature light box. The back-lit surface looked so elegant with the crystal Martini glasses. We also added edible glitter in the sugar rimmer- and extra touch of flair to this sophisticated buffet.

 

Signage is an important part of the buffet: it informs the guests what they're eating as well as continuing to carry on the theme. Every card is handmade by our presentation designer.

Congratulations and best wishes for the happy couple!

The Vibrant Colors of Spring

Even though we haven't reach the official "first day of spring", we at Savory just couldn't wait three more weeks!

For our event this week, we decorated with bright colors, ushering in the beautiful season! The serving room at Microsoft had bright colors and was a great place for such a bright buffet.

We used a bright blue, green, and yellow striped tablecloth and then accented with colored popcorn in jars- completely edible!

 The colored popcorn fit well with the casual luncheon setting. My favorite was the dark blue color- what's yours?

The menu: Warm pork tenderloin sandwiches with caramelized onions, muenster cheese, red pepper ailoli on a handmade Kaiser roll; lettuce and pickles were optional; an Asian salad with bowtie pasta, sesame seed oil, craisins, mandarin oranges and spinach; our newest addition to our dessert menu: white chocolate Oreo brownie.

 

 This Asian salad is actually Vegan. We easily adapt our recipes to make it Vegan, Vegetarian, gluten free, lactose free, and can accommodate those with common food allergies.

 Our newest addition to the Savory family is this dessert. It is everything you want: moist brownie, Oreo crumbles and delectable white chocolate. Include this in your order for dinner, luncheons, or even on a wedding buffet!

 

With Savory your corporate lunches will no longer be boring!