This Arugula Pasta Rhubarb Chia Salad is a refreshing and delectable meal for the summer. It has the required balanced nutrition along with being a vegan satisfying dish.
This is my preferred meal for summertime. Its simple, easy, healthy and filling. During these summer days, I certainly do not want to spend hours in the kitchen in this heat. 🙂
However, I always prefer homemade dressing from scratch. This way I am saved of the misleading labels, high calorie content and hidden ingredients in the salad dressing which defeats the whole purpose of eating salad.
So, I decided to try Rhubarb salad dressing for my Arugula pasta salad.
Ingredients for Arugula Pasta Rhubarb Chia Salad
It was my first time cooking with rhubarb. Even though there are in-numerous dessert recipes online with rhubarb I decided to go with a savory one.
Since I believe in healthy and outstanding creations, I tried this flavorful creamy rhubarb dressing. I perfected this recipe after lots of thoughts and kitchen experiments. 🙂
Rhubarb is a plant basically known for its beautiful red colored stalk. It’s low in calories and high in B complex vitamins. The compounds present in Rhubarb convert them into vitamin A in human body and provides a good source for antioxidant. Its stalks contain healthy levels of many minerals and it’s a spring plant and found mainly during summer in the stores.
I made this Rhubarb dressing with a prominent taste of chia seeds because by now we all know that these have occupied the top most position as the super food.
Then, I added the delicious baby arugula, the taste of which I finally discovered and it perfectly complements pasta.
I always go for healthy pasta option. Therefore, this time I chose spelt pasta because it has more fiber and essential complex carb.
Afterwards, for more flavors, I added black olives. It also enhanced vitamin C and antioxidant in it.
Lastly, I topped it with nuts so as to add more protein and omega 3 in it.
This colorful and nutritious dish gets ready within minutes. My family loved it so much that within minutes this salad was gone.
I feel tremendous pleasure in feeding healthy meals to my family and keep them in good health.
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Arugula Pasta Rhubarb Chia Salad
Ingredients
For the dressing
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 pitted dates (chopped)
- 1 cup chopped or sliced rhubarb
- 1 tsp rice vinegar
- 1/4 tsp lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
- 1/2 tbsp chia seeds
- 1/4 cup olive oil
For the salad
- 2 cups cooked pasta
- 2 cups baby arugula
- 1/4 cup black olives
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced yellow bell pepper
- 1 tbsp chopped raw pecans
- 1 tbsp slivered almonds
Instructions
- Combine water and dates in a pan and bring it to boil. Now add rhubarb and boil for 2 minutes until rhubarb softens.
- Now add rest of the ingredients for the dressing (except chia seeds and olive oil) and cook for 2 more minutes.
- Turn off the flame and let it cool. Then blend the dressing in the blender. Now gradually add chia seeds and olive oil in the blender and blend again till smooth.
- In a salad bowl combine all the other ingredients and toss in the rhubarb chia dressing.
- Serve cold or at room temperature.
Notes
- 1 cup chopped rhubarb equals to 2 stalks.
- The recipe for the dressing yields about 1 cup.
Nutrition
Marissa @ OMG FOOD says
I think the only time I’ve ever had rhubarb was in a strawberry rhubarb pie and that was so long ago. 🙂 I’ll have to add this to my list of foods to try; the combination of flavors you have here sound fantastic!
Shanna says
I love this salad! I have rhubarbs in my garden but they are too small to be eaten. Can’t wait to eat them next year 😀