Archives for June 2019

Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad

June 28, 2019 by Heidi Clark 2 Comments

Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad is America’s favorite chicken wing flavor in a summer salad! There’s so much to love about this little lovely! It’s filled with cooked fusilli pasta, chopped chicken, minced celery, red bell pepper and dressed with a zesty homemade Buffalo Blue Cheese Dressing. Chill it for a few hours and this Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad is ready to eat!

two small black bowls filled with pasta salad with two vintage forks resting next to the bowls two small glasses of sparkling water garnished with mint leaves sit above the bowls on the right side with a small loaf of baguette bread with a vintage butter knife with a pat of butter on it rest on the left side with a white linen towel separating the bread from the bowls and glasses

My favorite part about it is I don’t have to deal with chicken bones to have a hit of hot sauce! I was a vegetarian for over 20 years. Three years ago I went back to eating meat a few times a week. But, chicken wings have been something that I cannot get on board with! If Jeff orders them while we are in a restaurant, I request a menu from the server so that I can prop it open between our two sides of the table, so I don’t have to witness the carnage! Sorry, it honestly grosses me out! Now we fight over who ate more of this dish! The Buffalo Blue Cheese Dressing is addictive!

overhead shot of a tray filled with chopped red pepper sliced celery dry fusilli pasta blue cheese chopped chicken breast and buffalo blue cheese dressing a bundle of chives lies on the counter next to the tray and chive blossoms and dry fusilli pasta are scattered around the tray a white linen towel rests in the upper right corner

The only cooking you’ll have to do for this recipe is the pasta. The only other thing you may need to cook if you don’t have any on hand is a chicken breast. Every time I visit Costco I pick up a couple of their rotisserie chickens and chop the meat from them and freeze it, so I always have cooked chicken available for a last minute meal. It defrosts in a couple of minutes in the microwave and saves us from heating the oven or grill for cooking a single piece of meat.

overhead view of a bowl filled with cooked fusilli pasta thinly sliced celery chopped cooked chicken breast and minced red bell pepper in a large round white bowl a small round white bowl filled with blue cheese crumbles and a pitcher of buffalo blue cheese dressing rest at the top a white linen towel peeks in from the left side and a few chive blossoms rest next to the lower right side

Let’s talk about the pasta

Don’t feel like you have to make a special trip to the store if you don’t have fusilli pasta on hand. I wouldn’t use spaghetti or angel hair pasta for this recipe. But, there are so many pasta shapes that are perfect for salads! Wagon wheels, cavatappi (aka corkscrew), elbow macaroni, penne, and farfalle are all solid choices for pasta salad. We need a pasta shape that the dressing and veggies will cling to and are easily picked up with a fork!

If you are #celeryhater

No worries! If you hate celery or even red bell pepper feel free to sub in different veggies. May I suggest using corn, shredded carrots, chopped broccoli or water chestnuts instead? The salad needs something with a crunch to keep it from being too heavy.

Buffalo Blue Cheese dressing being poured over a large white bowl filled with cooked fusilli pasta minced red bell pepper thinly sliced celery and chopped cooked chicken breast a small white ramekin of blue cheese crumbles rests in the background with a white linen towel a few chive blossoms rests in front of the salad bowl

If you are #celerylover

Buffalo Blue Cheese dressing and celery is a marriage made in foodie heaven! Do you adore celery but are bummed when you pull it from the vegetable bin and it is sad and limp? I have a tip for you! Wrap your celery in a sheet of aluminum foil. I don’t know the science behind it but the foil keeps the celery crisp for weeks longer!

Hope you enjoy this recipe and make it part of your 4th of July festivities! We recommend pairing a bowl of this pasta salad with a glass of our Watermelon & Elderflower Sangria. Is a red sangria more your style? Try our Triple Berry & Ancho Chile Sangria! If you like these recipes and would like to receive them to your inbox everytime we post a new one subscribe at the bottom of the page. We would love to have you as part of the Yums & Kisses family!

Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad

★★★★★

5 from 1 reviews

Author: Heidi Clark~Yums & Kisses
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Chill Time: 4 hours
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 4 hours 25 minutes
Yield: Serves 6 1x

Print Recipe

Description

Buffalo Chicken Pasta is the perfect summer side dish! It’s zesty and full of chopped chicken breasts, blue cheese, fusilli pasta and veggies tossed with a spicy Buffalo Blue Cheese Dressing!

Ingredients

Scale

For the Buffalo Blue Cheese Dressing:

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 Tbsp minced chives

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup hot sauce ( I used Frank’s Red Hot Sauce)

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp onion powder

For the Pasta Salad:

8 ounces cooked fusilli pasta (cook according to pkg directions) drained & rinsed thoroughly with cold water

1/2 cup thinly sliced celery (about 2–3 stalks)

1/2 cup minced red bell pepper (about 1/2 a pepper)

1 and 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken breast

For Garnish:

minced chives, crumbled blue cheese, additional hot sauce if desired

Instructions

Prepare the Buffalo Blue Cheese Dressing:

Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a large bowl and stir well. Set aside.

Prepare the Salad:

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. When pasta is done, drain in a colander.
Immediately rinse with cold water until pasta is cold to the touch and not much starch is rinsing from it any longer.
Drain the pasta well before proceeding.
In a large bowl combine the cooked pasta, celery, red pepper, chopped chicken, and 1 cup of the dressing.
Toss the salad until the pasta is well coated with the dressing and veggies are evenly distributed.
Reserve remaining dressing for drizzling over salad at serving time, if desired.
Chill the pasta salad for at least 4 hours before serving.

Notes

Use your favorite Hot Sauce in the recipe if you don’t have Frank’s!
Be sure to rinse the cooked pasta thoroughly with cold water. If the pasta isn’t well rinsed, the starch that accumulates on it during cooking will result in sticky pasta that may clump in the salad. Rinsing the pasta with cold water also stops the cooking process and prevents the pasta from becoming mushy.

Category: Dinner
Method: Boil
Cuisine: American

Keywords: buffalo chicken pasta salad, pasta salad, buffalo chicken, salad, chicken

No Bake Peanut Butter Energy Bar

June 25, 2019 by Heidi Clark 1 Comment

You are going to fall in love with these No Bake Peanut Butter Energy Bars! They are portable, filling and you don’t even have to turn on the oven to make them! You’ll never purchase store-bought energy bars again! Are you planning a road trip this summer? Are you always rushing out the door without eating breakfast? Meet your new favorite recipe!

measured ingredients seperated into small round bowls on a metal baking pan ingredients are honey oats chocolate chips millet dried figs flaxseed cinnamon salt sesame seeds coconut flakes and peanut butter a white linen towel rests in the upper right hand corner

We made these No Bake Peanut Butter Energy Bars with regular rolled oats, chopped dried figs, chocolate chips, sesame seeds, chia seeds, ground flax seed, toasted sesame seeds, unsweetened shredded coconut, ground cinnamon, sea salt, millet, peanut butter, and honey.

Millet? What the heck is that?

It’s the stuff on the bottom left of the tray. Millet looks like bird seed. Well, millet is used as bird seed, but it’s pretty tasty human food, too! I promise you won’t sprout yellow feathers and a beak by eating it, but you will be consuming healthy amounts of iron, protein, fiber, calcium, and magnesium from it! I love millet because it provides a significant crunch factor when used in its raw form. I purchase millet at Whole Foods from the self-serve bin area. If you want to skip the millet omit it and add more coconut to the mixture.

peanut butter and honey swirled together in a metal saucepan with a dark gray spatula mixing it

In fact, you can customize the bars to your liking. Don’t like dried figs? Substitute your favorite dried fruit instead! Not a fan of peanut butter? Feel free to substitute almond butter or cashew butter instead. Keep in mind, if you are substituting another type of nut butter for the peanut butter you may need to use a bit more. Cashew and almond butter tend to have a bit of a drier consistency compared to peanut butter.

Do I need to use the stove for this recipe?

I recommend heating the peanut butter and honey on the stovetop over medium heat for about ninety seconds. You need just a bit of warmth to make the peanut butter and honey a bit more fluid. This step helps them combine with the oat mixture evenly.

a batch of peanut butter energy bar mixture being dumped out of a stainless steel mixing bowl into a square metal baking pan

You can mix the ingredients for the bars one of two ways. Either stir it by hand using a sturdy wooden spoon or if you have a stand mixer use it with the paddle attachment on low speed. I tested this recipe using both methods. Both work just fine, stirring this by hand gives your arm a bit of a strength training session but is totally doable!

peanut butter energy bar mixture flattened into a square baking pan using a flat black spatula to smooth the energy bar mixture and make it flat

Use a spatula to help push the energy bar mixture into the corners of the pan. Use your hands or press down on a large flat pancake turner to flatten it till it’s well compressed and flat. Be sure to put a lot of pressure on the mixture in the pan that way it packs and won’t fall apart when pulling it out of the baking pan. Leaving a bit of parchment paper hanging over the sides of the pan creates handles you can use to pull the chilled energy bars up and out of the pan easily when ready to slice into bars.

a whole energy bar recipe that is uncut being lifted out of square baking pan by parchment paper handles

The nutritional info for the recipe is based on one large bar out of eight servings. If you like, you can cut the bars into smaller portions. Wrap the bars in plastic wrap. The bars can be kept in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks or frozen in a Ziploc bag for a few months.

8 rectangular energy bars lying on a wrinkled sheet of parchment paper surrounded by a scattering of chocolate chips a grey linen napkin and a jar of honey with a dipper

Looking to make a brunch spread? Pair these bars with our Broccoli, Bacon and Cheddar Frittata, Blueberry Lemon Coffee Cake and Watermelon Elderflower Sangria for a perfect summer menu! If you like these recipes you can subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of the page. Every time we publish a new recipe you’ll receive it in your inbox!