Pasta Salad with Grilled Kale, Bell Pepper, and Red Onion
Pasta and the grill aren't two things most people put together. It's not something I do much either with only two pasta recipes on this site previously—a grilled pasta primavera and a grilled pumpkin ravioli. To me this just means it's an area I need to explore more because I bet I could come up with some tasty stuff that combines these two seemingly mutually exclusive things. Well, I now have a third item for entry with a pasta salad featuring grilled kale, bell pepper, and red onion.
As if "grilled and pasta" doesn't make this enough of a weirdo recipe, "grilled and kale" are two things you also don't often see together. That's a bit of a shame though because grilled kale is really great, rendering this thick, leafy veg both tender and with more flavor. It's actually not that hard to grill either, especially if you start with a whole bunch where you can rip the leaves from the thick stems in large pieces that are less likely to fall through the grates.
After washing and drying the kale leaves, I massaged them with olive oil before placing them over direct heat in one large mass. I let this cook until I saw the edges of some leaves start to brown and crisp, at which point I started to turn the whole bunch of kale occasionally to get some more of this desired crisping in additional areas. Once I was happy with the tenderness and amount of charred bits, I transferred the kale to cutting board.
After grilling the kale, which takes a watchful eye, I moved on to the onion and bell peppers. I had skewered some red onion rings so they held together well on the grill and cooked them until well charred on the outside and crisp-tender on the inside. The bell pepper I had cut into large pieces and also grilled those until they had some spotty charring and were almost completely tender. When both were done, they went on the cutting board with the kale.
I wasn't sure what type of pasta I was going to use until I went to the grocery store to see all my options. I ended up selecting mezzi rigatoni for no specific reason except that it felt like it was calling to me that day. You can use a lot of different pastas here—originally I was thinking of penne, gemelli, or farfalle and I think any of them would have worked just as well.
While the pasta cooked, I roughly chopped the kale and red onion, and sliced the red pepper into strips. I also assembled the dressing, which I opted to go for a balsamic vinaigrette thinking the strong presence of balsamic would pair up well against the heartiness of the grilled kale and sweetness of the peppers and onions.
Once the pasta was done, I rinsed it under cold water to cool it off and then combined the pasta with the dressing, onions, peppers, and kale. I also added in halved grape tomatoes, toasted pine nuts, mozzarella pearls, and grated parmesan. The salad just needed a touch a pepper to taste right to me before I put it the fridge because I thought serving this cold would be the best bet on what was a very hot and humid day.
If I'm going to make a grilling recipe that features pasta, I want to make the use of the grill worth, and I think it was here. The grilled veggies were the most plentiful components behind the pasta, and they each had enough browning and char that you could taste they were cooked over a live fire, but it wasn't so strong that it felt overpowering or out of place. The tangy balsamic was a good pairing overall, especially when adding in the sweet tomatoes and creamy mozzarella, both which helped temper the strong presence balsamic added. The pine nuts were also key in adding pockets of crunch to the otherwise soft ingredients. Now that I have grilled pasta dishes on my mind, a lot of new ideas are swirling, especially meaty ones since so far all of mine have veggie-focused.
