De-LIGHT-ful

When I was in college, I used to work retail. On my lunch break I would walk to Whole Foods to get a fresh Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad from the salad bar. Honestly, finding that salad was probably the one cool thing that came out of that job. (It was a less-than-awesome job).

Now that I'm a teacher (a way awesomer job) and have the summers off, (totally awesome) I'm not buying lunch that often, but I still crave that salad. I love having a cold dinner in the summertime too. It's so refreshing and feels healthier for some reason. I made my own version of it at home a few days ago. You can really add any ingredients that you like, but I kept it simple.

I just cooked up some bowtie pasta, chopped some fresh romaine, and added some leftover cooked chicken  that was in the fridge. I added some pepper, shredded Parmesan cheese, and creamy Caesar (or creamy Italian) salad dressing. Then I tossed it all together and chilled it for about an hour. It was so good on a hot day last week. You could also add red and yellow tomatoes (which also makes it more visually interesting) but I didn't add them because Greg doesn't like fresh tomatoes. I think it also might taste really cool and satisfying with some crisp cucumber. Like I said, you can add anything you like to create different flavor combination, bell peppers, banana peppers, even some big crunchy croutons. So dig in your fridge tonight and throw together a nice cold pasta salad using what you've got, it's budget friendly and definitely refreshing!