Perfect Gluten-free Pasta for Pasta Salad

Pasta salad is not the easiest thing to make gluten-free – at least it wasn’t for us. With so many gluten-free pastas on the market today, most people can find one or more gluten-free options they like for their favorite pasta dishes. Several years ago we found out the hard way that all gluten-free pastas do not translate well as cold pasta dishes.

When having dinner guests in the summer, I usually make cold pasta salad to go with whatever we’re serving. Once I was gluten-free however, this was easier said than done. My first attempt at making gluten-free pasta was a total disaster. I doubt I’ll ever forget the chalky taste of the cold rice pasta either – it was simply horrid – to us anyway.

One summer weekend, several months after my celiac diagnosis, we were expecting dinner guests on Saturday evening. I cooked some gluten-free (rice) pasta the night before and tossed it with olive oil and put it in the refrigerator – as I’d always done when making pasta salad. The next morning I went to finish making the salad so the flavors had time to meld together. But the cold rice pasta was unlike any cold pasta I’d ever seen. It was sort of like dried pasta actually.

Pure rice pasta is quite firm when it’s cold. One bite of the cold pasta with it’s very chalky taste sent me straight to the store to pick up a bag of potatoes. Luckily I had time to make potato salad before our guests arrived.

Months later I found a pasta worth eating cold. At a gluten-free event, I tried a very good pasta salad made with Ancient Harvest quinoa/corn pasta. That salad was dressed with mayo though, and I didn’t find the pasta to work as well when dressed with olive oil. It was much better than the rice pasta was but it wasn’t stellar.

When I discovered the fabulous pasta brand Andean Dream earlier this year, it didn’t occur to me to use it in pasta salad. Since it contains rice in addition to quinoa, I assumed it would not work in a cold pasta dish. I assumed wrong. It not only works in pasta salad, it makes the best gluten-free pasta salad we’ve had. We made it when using olive oil for the dressing and it was simply amazing!

Andean Dream pasta is free of gluten, dairy, soy, nuts and corn and is certified organic. Here is an excerpt about quinoa from Andean Dream’s website : 

Classified as a ‘supercrop’ by the United Nations for its high protein content, quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids, making it an unusually complete food.

Andean Dream pasta is available in Return to Eden in Atlanta and various health food stores around the country. You can also order it online. It took me over three years but I finally perfected my Mediterranean pasta salad gluten-free style. What brand of gluten-free pasta do you use for pasta salad?