Pasta Salad with Sausage & Chickpeas; lamb

Hot weather needs salads.

We need an occasional break from green salads.

I’ve been making pasta salads for years. When I first made what we think of as ‘pasta salad’ I used what everyone else used: bottled Italian dressing. Now I make a vinaigrette or yogurt dressing with a variety of additions or flavors….. Whatever suits my mood or the picnic or the ingredients.

Actually, in thinking about it, my mother used to make pasta salad – with tuna.

She called it Macaroni Salad and I’m pretty sure she used Miracle Whip.

Ahhh…. the memories!

Click here to Pin Pasta Salad with Sausage & Chickpeas

Pasta Salad with Sausage & Chickpeas

Print Recipe

I made this for dinner, at the usual time, so it was a warm salad. It could be made an hour or so ahead and served at room temperature.

• Author: Kate
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Yield: 2 servings 1x
• Category: Salads

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 1/4 cup (4oz, 120gr) bite-size pasta
• 10oz (300gr) sausages
• 15oz (450gr) chickpeas, garbanzo beans, drained, rinsed
• 3oz (90gr) feta cheese, cut or crumbled
• 1/2 cup (3oz, 90gr) cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into strips
• 1/2 yellow pepper, cut into strips
• 2 tbs fresh snipped chives or garlic chives
• 2 tbs fresh snipped marjoram
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tbs olive oil
• Vinaigrette
• 3 tbs red wine vinegar
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 1 tbs ketchup

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

• Cook pasta according to package instructions. 
• When done, drain, put into a large serving bowl.
• Drain and rinse chickpeas. 
• Heat oil, vinegar and soy sauce in skillet. 
• Add pepper and sauté 5 minutes, 
• Add chickpeas, tomatoes, and sauté 3 minutes longer, just to warm the chickpeas and soften the tomatoes. Remove from heat and add to pasta.
• Vinaigrette
• Put all ingredients for vinaigrette in a small bowl and whisk well to combine.
• Cook sausages on barbecue grill or sauté in skillet until done. 
• Remove sausages and slice into 1 1/2″ (4cm) lengths.
• To assemble: 
• Add vinaigrette to pasta / vegetables, and toss well to combine. 
• Add sausages to pasta along with feta and herbs. Toss gently and serve.

Notes

Salads are flexible…. Use any color or kind of pepper, sausage, and bean you like.

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1/2 recipe
• Calories: 1318
• Sugar: 13.1 g
• Sodium: 2203.4 mg
• Fat: 88.7 g
• Saturated Fat: 28.1 g
• Trans Fat: 0 g
• Carbohydrates: 85.5 g
• Fiber: 11.4 g
• Protein: 46.1 g
• Cholesterol: 154.1 mg

Keywords: pasta salad, sausage salad

I have a full freezer already and the potager hasn’t even started to produce yet.

A week ago a French friend called and asked if I wanted a lamb again this year. Naturally, I said yes. The other 2 years we got a lamb from him it had been in the fall, after I had been freezing tomatoes and summer squash like mad. We bought another freezer last summer. This year we’ll have all of those lovely chops in time for grilling season!

I was prepared when he called on Friday and said it was ready.

If one lived in the U.S. one would interpret that to mean that the meat had been cut, trimmed, wrapped, and labeled.

This is France. The meat was piled up on plastic trays. We stacked it into the back of our SUV, he covered it with a sheet, and we took it home. I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting, trimming, organizing, wrapping, labeling, and, eventually, freezing it.

The lamb wasn’t big enough to fill the freezer – which was a good thing because just a few weeks earlier I had bought part of a pig. The pig came in a big plastic bag. It also had to be sorted, trimmed, organized, wrapped, and labeled before freezing.

We passed on the half of a boar we were offered.

And that, my friends, is life in the middle of nowhere, France.

Oh…. we got a dozen fresh eggs as a gift to go with the lamb.