This recipe combines pasta with beans and fresh vegetables for a more substantial picnic salad. The dressing is a simple vinaigrette – no mayo – so the flavors stay fresh and bright. I like to use a small hollow pasta like pipe rigate, which are stubby little curlicues that look like the end of a pipe! I like that the beans magically fall into the round openings when you stir and serve the pasta, as if you had painstakingly placed them there. This said, you can also use any of the flat or corkscrew shapes – penne, fusilli, rotini, cavatappi – or pretty bow-ties. Prep work for this salad is minimal. You just need to cook pasta, make a vinaigrette, chop up some herbs and vegetables, and open a few cans of beans. (You can also make your beans from scratch on the stove or in a pressure cooker!) Mix it all together and serve. This recipe calls for a pound of pasta and two cans of white beans – it will serve a crowd, for sure! But with any luck, the table will have so much food that you’ll get to take some of your salad back home for lunch tomorrow. Drain but do not rinse; shake the colander to remove excess water. Add the rinsed beans and lemon zest to the hot pasta. Stir the salad gently. Leave to cool. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper, if you like. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper, if you like. You can also squeeze some lemon juice over the top if it needs a touch more brightness.
