Grilled Vegetable Pasta Salad

I used these gorgeous vegetables as inspiration for my Grilled Vegetable Pasta Salad.

Clean and slice vegetables for grilling. I used eggplant, zucchini, onion, red pepper, green pepper.  Salt the sliced eggplant and let it rest in a colander to drain away any bitterness. Rinse off salt and pat dry.

Ready for the grill.

Grill Veggies with a bit of olive oil brushed on ntil they get soft and achieve some of those nice grill marks.

My grill didn't seem to get quite hot enough so I don't have as many grill marks as I would have liked

Prepare your choice of pasta according to directions in an amount you think is reasonable.  I cooked half of a 13oz box.   I prefer using tricolor rotini but all I had in the pantry was penne. Cook al dente so it doesn’t get too mushy. Rinse in cold water.

Toss pasta with grilled veggies, a little garlic, parsley, basil and your choice of dressing – I used a Balsamic Vinaigrette. Add parmesan if desired. I had some leftover crumbled Italian sausage and some fresh diced tomatoes that I added in as well.

Serve chilled as a side dish.

I think this dish would also work very well hot.   If I made it hot I would probably not use the Balsamic Dressing but would instead toss with just olive oil, parmesean and cook the tomatoes instead of using them fresh and cold.  My husband enjoyed this as a side in his lunchbox.