From Kyle Phillips,
Your Guide to Italian Food.
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Pasta is extraordinarily versatile, and while it is the perfect comfort food in winter, for example with a rich meat sauce or baked, it can also be one of the most refreshing summer dishes there is, if it's made into a pasta salad to be served either warm (never hot) or chilled. Many pasta salads can also be made ahead, and indeed benefit from several hours of refrigeration, which gives the ingredients of the sauce time to meld and also allows the sauce to fully flavor the pasta.

This makes pasta salad perfect for days when you're rushed and have to prepare ahead, and also makes it an ideal picnic food: You put it in the cooler, together with the meats for the grill and whatever else you are taking (Lambrusco would be nice), and it gets better on the way.

A couple of observations:

• Since pasta salads are made ahead, you want more substantial shapes, along the lines of ziti, butterflies, or penne, whose thicker walls will maintain their body as they absorb the sauce.
• Since pasta does continue to absorb sauce even if it's cool or chilled, you don't want to start out with too dry a sauce, or the dish will dry out by serving time. Be careful not to exaggerate in the other direction, however.

Having Said This, Some Recipes:

Lemony Pasta Salad
This also has plenty of tuna, which makes it a meal by itself (or with a green salad).
Difficulty: Easy

Bowties with Almonds, String beans, Feta and Tomatoes
A tasty pasta salad that gains zest from feta cheese, richness from almonds, and balance from string beans.
Difficulty: Easy

Bowties With Chicken and Beans in a Spicy Sauce
Deft, and quite refreshing.
Difficulty: Easy

Bowtie and Pepper Salad
Bowties with bell peppers, tomatoes and mozzarella.
Difficulty: Easy

Corkscrews with Vegetables and Mozzarella
Grilled vegetables have a spicy tang that blends quite nicely with mozzarella's richness.
Difficulty: Easy

Corkscrews with Zucchini Blossoms
Zucchini blossoms mark the arrival of summer, and work quite nicely in this pasta salad.
Difficulty: Easy

Chilled Pasta Salad with Black Olives -- Pasta Fredda alle Olive
Black olives are one of my favorite summer seasonings for pasta. Not by themselves, of course, but they do help define this bell pepper sauce.

Pasta Salad with Lentils and Tuna
Lentils are as tasty cool as they are warm, and are therefore a perfect bet in a pasta salad. In this case with tuna, and they're red, which adds a pretty color contrast to the dish.

Paste all'Ammiraglio
Chilled pasta with fresh tomatoes, perfect when the weather's hot and the tomatoes are first-rate.
Difficulty: Easy

Penne with Shrimp and Bell Peppers
The combination works quite well, and is also very refreshing.
Difficulty: Easy

Shells with Red Pesto
The word pesto derives from pestare, to step on or grind, and therefore the sauce need not be green, especially if it's based on sun-dried tomatoes.
Difficulty: Easy

Spaghetti Timballo with Eggplant
An unusual pasta pie whose crust is made of eggplant rather than dough. Perfect for the summer months!
Difficulty: Intermediate