jeri-, Sounds delish with tomatoes, olives and spinach. If it is the costco pesto in the squarish container that needs to be fridged?, i know that one. I like it. A life-saver in the dead of winter when i want something quick and fresh tasting. Nice and nutty, good garlic flavor. Hard for us to use up once opened so i freeze it in small containers. A tbsp in a salad dressing is good!. Also nice in a bean salad. When i drain my pasta i save a bit of the pasta water...just a 1/4 cup-ish in a pyrex. When your pasta is drained it will continue to steam being so hot. The first thing tossed into it will slightly cook and be absorbed. (why i don't add the pesto first....the basil will not taste as fresh). A small amount of marinade like a fruity vinegar with some of your olive brine, just a tbsp of each. A bit of good olive oil and again just a tbsp or less. (if it is the same pesto i know, it is made with mostly sunflower oil...just a tiny bit of olive oil further down the ingredient list). It is oily enough for me so i don't usually add any extra oil...and not about calories at all. More about an oily tasting pasta salad. If the spinach in your deli salad is firm, add it with the pesto later on when the pasta has cooled a bit. I add a bit of that saved pasta water to my pesto but judge that before adding. I'm always using different brands of pasta and i can never tell what the 'steaming' factor might be. If you want the spinach to be slightly wilted, toss it in when the pasta is hot adding with your marinade 'brine'. DH likes a certain pasta that i've been having trouble with. It is a spinach green leaf shape and a bit thick, and very starchy. It seems to like some extra olive oil to 'seal' it. Meaning to coat it and hold that starch. Otherwise it releases starch into the rest of the 'salad'. Tricky to try and reproduce a favorite, and often expensive, deli version. Fun though if you pull it off. I'm trying to crack the code of a great deli spinach egg salad. I think the spinach is Matador and just started a tray of seed starts for a fall crop...it is very thick and meaty, not thin and wilty. A bit nuts but i'm determined, : ) I did buy some over the winter and it has really good fridge shelf life. Also quickly blanched it froze well. Without the acrid iron taste that some leafy spinach has...

That is a beautiful pasta sleevendog. I don't tend to use the longer pastas available around here because it's mostly smoother flat or round stuff. Or long round spirals and large chunky stuff. I have to admit I use cheaper pasta.. but it having a texture, tooth, or groves that are easy to get into is important. And messing around with flavors too. We tend to rotate more than you do than do a bunch of different ones at once.. it's just the two of us now so I have to remember to make less.. like we just finished up a 2-4 day run of eating out a batch of chicken bacon ranch pasta salad that overlapped the tail end of some horseradish brussels sprouts slaw.. tonight I'm cooking off little red taters while the kitchen is hot anyway to chill off to make another round of cold salad. I should do a bean salad soon. Something I've noticed about how I make batches of these kinds of salads is that the quantities of stuff kind of remains the same. Like a box/half/1/3 package depending on what kind it is is the "standard" amount of pasta I use depending on how many cans/meats/veggies. And to the thread in general.. does other cold pasta use count as salad? Or other cold service? Sometimes I make cold stuff with big pasta too. Like big tube pastas or shells, leftover lasagna noodles to stuff or roll up with tuna salad, chicken salad, veggie salads of minced tomato, cukes, onion, olives, ect.. and drizzle with the sauce of choice to keep the pasta moist till service. Having your salad in the pasta instead of having your pasta in the salad. I've done this sort of thing for larger party service on occasion. Or when I end up with tail end packages of big pasta for whatever reason and got a few to pack off with the random can of tuna or whatever for a couple lunches.

Sometimes I measure S&P and sometimes I don’t. I find measuring fresh ground pepper to be too much of a PITA. I cut way back on sodium years ago and find I usually only like about half the amount called for in recipes. I often just pour coarse salt in my palm and eyeball it. We like pepper so I’m likely to use more not less. Sometimes I know by taste that I have to add more salt but I can’t offset bland with salt. I have a bunch of salt free spice blends I use and a variety of vinegars to add more zip. Speaking of salt - I‘m amazed by the amount of salt restaurants use - nice restaurants. It’s as if it’s the only spice they’re familiar with. I guess that’s what most people like if they’ve never cut back on sodium. I’ve had more than a few salty meals I couldn’t eat.

In my 'job" as receptions chair for the church i made a LOT of pasta salads. Very often we needed a lunch at noon for 60 to 120....so do ahead was a must. I cooked the pasta ahead of time, al dente, a bit under cooked. Added enough dressing to coat and refrigerated, then cut and bagged separately, cucumbers, sweet red onions, various colored peppers, halved cherry tomatoes or romas, with the seeds removed and cut in chunks and for green I often used broccoli blanched for about 1 minute then flash chilled in ice water.. Bagged the prepped veggies and refrigerated. In the morning put any juicy veggies in a strainer to drain before adding to the salad, didn;t use spinach because it quickly becomes like bits of green saran in the salad.... added more dressing to coat and a handful or chopped parsley...or sometimes mixed herbs....like parsley basil and dill. Myd ressing was always home made.... 1 T dijon vinegar, 1 T honey 1 crushed clove of garlic (or grated) 3 T of rice vinegar or cider vinegar and 1 T balsamic, and 1/2 cup olive oil....whisk or shake well. double or triple ther ecipe....extra keeps. Salt the water well when you cook the pasta and taste the finished salad for salt....black or red pepper according to taste, and finish with grated cheese....parm...peccorino...asiago....feta....whatever.. I often added some blanched carrot buttons and some zucchini chunks. You have to make the decision if youa re making a pasta salad with veggies or a marinated vegetable salad with pasta. Often had extra cooked pasta on hand to add if the crowd was larger than expected.