Creamy Spring Tuna and Sweet Pea Pasta Salad is a wonderfully refreshing springtime lunch or picnic dish. Make it up for your next potluck or whip up a batch to take to work this week!
I, like many other people, love to garden. Vegetable garden more so than flower garden (although there are always flowers in my vegetable patch). There is something so satisfying about digging in the dirt and pulling out dinner. I always get a little too excited and plant a few things way too early, only to have them die in a late frost. But I soldier on, and plant and replant all of the veggies I can fit into my tilled up corner of the yard. You can hear me for most of the Summer pulling up weeds, giving the squash bugs a good cussing, and agonizing over whether it’s time to dig up the potatoes or not. I have nightmares about tomato hornworms and giant sprout-eating groundhogs. I get pretty obsessed about my garden. But nothing makes me happier than picking that first vegetable of the year out of the dirt. And usually, that first veggie is the humble pea.
I adore peas. They are so fragile and sweet. They even look adorable with three or four tucked away inside of a sweet little pod. There is a pretty short window of opportunity with peas, you have to get them when they are just right, but the best ones are so sweet that you can eat them raw right there in the garden. I have planted what I hope is a huge amount of peas this year. With some luck, I’ll be enjoying the first veggies of the year in a couple of weeks. I hope you too are planting a vegetable or two this year. Whether it is one tomato plant in a pot on your front porch or an acre of veggies in your back yard, there is no better way to enjoy the season.
Ingredients
- 1 box farfalle pasta 16 oz, bowtie
- ½ lemon
- 2 cans of tuna 5oz, drained and flaked
- ½ cup light mayonnaise
- ½ small red onion minced
- ¼ cup fresh parsley minced
- ½ t . dry dill or ½ T fresh
- ¼ c . grated Parmesan
- 1 cup green peas fresh or frozen
- ½ t . salt
- ½ t . pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to the package directions. Add in the peas for the last couple of minutes of cooking time, drain, and return to the pan to evaporate the remaining liquid. While the pasta is still hot, squeeze the juice of ½ a lemon over the pasta and peas and stir well. Set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile in a large bowl, combine the remaining ingredients until mixed well. Add the pasta and peas to the tuna mixture and gently combine (so you don't crush the peas). Taste and add salt and pepper to season. Refrigerate before serving.
I made a half batch of this tonight for dinner and it was a hit! I had to substitute shallot for the red onion since it’s what we had in the house, but it worked out great. The peas were little bursts of sweet in the otherwise savory noodle salad. It was wonderful; I’m sure we will make it again. Thank you for sharing it!
Yay! I’m so happy you gave this a try and thank you for leaving a comment! I love to hear from readers. The shallot was an excellent substitute and maybe even better than red onion. 🙂 I hope you come back again. Thanks again!
A lunch favorite!