Pesto & Sundried Tomato Pasta Salad

Ok, so pesto is my favorite seasoning for just about anything…anything savory at least.  It wouldn’t taste very yummy in peach cobbler…  But on toast, mixed with eggs, in chicken salad on a croissant, um yes, please!  Of course, it goes with pasta, like butter on bread.  If you add it with one of my other favorite ingredients:  sundried tomatoes, I can eat it for days…Mmmmm.  When I made this pasta salad with pesto and sundried tomatoes recently, my husband said the sundried tomatoes MADE it!  But really it’s hard to choose an absolute favorite ingredient in this dish, because they work together so well for a scrumptious cool pasta salad for summer or anytime!

Here  are the ingredients you need:

16 oz box pasta (I like cellentani or bowtie, but any short pasta will work)
6.7 ounce jar traditional basil pesto
1/4 cup balsamic vinaigrette
1 1/2 cups cooked, chopped chicken breast
7 ounces sundried tomatoes in oil, diced
1/2 cup or more shredded mozzarella
1/4 Parmesan cheese
2 cups fresh spinach leaves

Cook, drain and rinse your pasta. If you’d like, tear or chop up the spinach leaves into more bite size pieces.  If your sundried tomatoes aren’t already diced, dice them up, but save the oil they’re in to add to the salad.  Now’s the easy part, toss everything together in a large bowl (clean hands work really well for this), and chill for a couple or more hours.  Taste and see if it needs salt and pepper (according to your family’s taste), then give it a quick stir to refresh all the ingredients, and remix in some of the oil and dressing that settled to the bottom. That’s it, you’re ready to serve.   This makes a lot, maybe 6-8 large servings, depending on your appetites.

Even though this is a cool summery salad, I dare say, you would enjoy it anytime of year!