basic pasta salad?

[desh]

OK. So I know I can make a pasta salad. I've got the pasta part down, and I can eyeball the right amount of other solid ingredients (feta, bell peppers, cucumber, olives, green onion). I'm just not at all sure about the liquid ingredient ratio or overall quantity.

So. For 1 pound of pasta, how much olive oil? How much vinegar? How much lemon juice, if any? (For bonus points, does red wine vinegar or balsamic sound better?) And how many people do you think this will serve overall (i.e. should I halve it)?

(The internet is really confusing on this score. Some sites say to use a 3:1 ratio of oil to vinegar, or maybe it's vinegar to oil? Some say to use the same amount, and they can't both be right! Also, so many sites measure the pasta in cups, though it comes in the box in pounds. How many cups to a pound? Is that uncooked cups or cooked? I figured it was just better to ask here.)

Thanks!

Comments

[libitina]

Some sites say to use a 3:1 ratio of oil to vinegar, or maybe it's vinegar to oil? Some say to use the same amount, and they can't both be right!

They can both be right. If you're using more cheese, then you need less oil to balance the flavors. And how much vinegar you use is partly for taste and partly for preservation - be aware that it will wilt ingredients like spinach and can turn garlic pieces blue-ish green.

Feel free to use any vinegar that is tasty to you. Balsamic will stain your pasta and vegetables brownish (though there is such a thing as white balsamic), but it will be tasty and you can choose whole wheat pasta as your base to keep it from looking too weird. You can even mix vinegars.

Tasting as you go helps, but pasta salads flavor matures as it sits, so there's a certain amount of learning by tasting and having to eat delicious pasta salad. But there's a huge range of acceptable tastiness.