Roasted/ Grilled Vegetable Pasta Salad

Through the course of summer, I have found out the greatness of a simple yet satisfying meal. I have also loved grilling and roasting vegetables-- this retains their gorgeous flavor while cooking them to tender perfection. Recently, my family had a huge barbecue party where there were lots of leftovers. Among the grilled ribs and sausage was quite a handful of asparagus and zucchini, some of which I decided to supplement with pasta and some roasted veggies to turn into a wholesome lunch. The recipe for this simple yet flavor packed dish is below.

Ingredients:

PASTA

- 2 zucchini halved

- 6 asparagus stalks

- 1 cup baby carrots (can be substituted with regular carrots)

- 2 cups pasta

- handful spring mix

- 1 small onion

- 3 cloves garlic sliced

- salt and pepper to taste

- 2 tbsp. olive oil

- 1 pinch red chili flakes

- 1 pinch oregano

- 1 pinch garlic powder

DRESSING

- 1 part apple cider vinegar

- 1/2 parts lemon juice

- 1 part extra virgin olive oil

- 1 pinch salt

- 1 pinch pepper

- 1 pinch garlic powder

- 1 pinch red chili flakes

- 1/4 parts honey

Directions:

To start off, I had already grilled the zucchini and asparagus, but feel free to add them into the roasting pan alongside the other vegetables-- they'll turn out great any way that you cook them. But first, set the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and chop up the carrots and onion into a medium size pieces. From the pictures, you can see that I cut the carrots on a bias in half, but if you are using regular carrots instead of baby carrots, chop them up to a similar size to your pasta. In this dish, try to make everything a uniform size so that each bite can be filled with every flavor. Slice up the garlic and add it to a baking tray lined with tin foil with the carrots and onion. Toss the veggies with the olive oil, salt, pepper, red chili flakes, oregano, and garlic powder until everything is well mixed. When the oven is ready, place the baking tray in for about 15 minutes. After the initial time, toss the roasted veggies around and add the zucchini, asparagus, and spring mix to the mixture. Roast for an additional 10 minutes, or until everything is golden and tender. At this point, you can start to cook your pasta, which should take about 10 minutes to cook (follow the directions on the package).

Next up is making the dressing. Now, you could just mix the roasted vegetables and pasta together without a dressing, but the vinegar and lemon add such a nice zingy flavor. Combine the apple cider vinegar and lemon together and add in the salt, pepper, red chili flakes, and honey. The amounts of each ingredient are flexible depending on how much dressing you like in your pasta salads. While whisking the mixture vigorously, pour the extra virgin olive oil in until it emulsifies. Note that there is no emulsifying agent in this recipe (normally I would use mustard), as I wanted to keep it fresher and lighter, but feel free to add one in. Toss everything together, serve, and enjoy!