So you have been invited to a picnic but don’t know what to bring? We’ve all been in that situation. Of course, if you ask, you know that you’re going to be told that you don’t have to bring anything, but a polite guest should contribute to the picnic in some way. Below, we will give you to great recipes that you can easily make that people will be sure to love.
Pasta Salad
Pasta salad is a popular picnic food item but few people know how to make it the right way. The secret to great pasta salad is allowing the pasta to absorb the dressing overnight. Make the pasta salad one or two days before it will be eaten to give the noodles plenty of time to absorb the extra dressing. You should alsoundercook the noodles slightly. This will allow the noodles to absorb additional dressing as opposed to the water in the initial cooking process.
You should also make sure that the cooked pasta is cold before you add the other ingredients. If you are in a hurry, you can add the cooked noodles to ice water and replace it a few times to quickly cool them off. Once the noodles have been cooled, place them in a colander and shake off as much water as you can.
Food Items
At this point, you can add your other ingredients along with your noodles. My ingredients of choice include a red onion, mozzarella cheese cubes, sliced cherry tomatoes, black olives and green olives. If you want an extra crunch to your pasta salad, you can also add slices of celery. For the dressing, it is best to use Italian or robust Italian dressings. Be careful that you do not add too much dressing. You can always add more, but you cannot take it out once you pour it in. Add all of the ingredients and mix the pasta salad together. After 24 hours in the refrigerator, it will be ready to go.
Another great and easy to make food item is chili. Chili is easy to make, especially if you have a slow cooker. All you have to do is brown the meat and throw all the ingredients in the slow cooker together. After about five hours, your chili will be ready to be eaten.
As a bonus, you can also add cheese, sour cream and bread to dip in along with the chili. If you are not in the mood for chili, you can easily change this to a sloppy joe recipe. Sloppy joemix is about the same only it has less vegetables and requires a sloppy joeseasoning packet as opposed to a chili seasoning packet. Whichever you decide to make, you can easily bring it right to the picnic as soon as it is ready. Your chili or sloppy Joe will be a hit at the picnic that everyone will love.
If you are looking for other picnic meal ideas, you can look at mealplannerpro.ca here, you’ll find other great recipes just like the ones that we discussed above.
