Pesto Pasta Salad Recipe with Grilled Barbecue Chicken & Vegetable Skewers
Description
Easy and delicious summer pasta salad with grilled chicken thighs marinated in barbecue and grilled vegetable skewers. An amazing and different pasta salad that’s healthy and filling.
Ingredients
4.41 oz (125 g) rigatoni pasta
2 tablespoons green pesto
0.5 red onion
0.5 zucchini
0.5 red bell pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt/pepper
6.17 oz (175 g) boneless chicken thighs with bbq marinade
0.5 handful fresh basil
0.71 oz (20 g) pine nuts
Skewers for the grill
Directions
- Boil pasta according to packaging instructions in generously salted water.
- Drain water when it’s done let the pastas cool off. Then add pesto and mix. Feel free to add less or more than 2 tablespoons depending on your preference.
- Grab your favorite KUMA kitchen knife and slice red onion, bell pepper, and zucchini into rough pieces. Add them to a bowl and mix them with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
- Find your skewers for the grill and add vegetable pieces to them. Set aside.
- Heat up a pan with no grease and briefly roast the pine nuts so they become golden. Then remove them from the pan into a bowl.
- Fire up your grill and add vegetable skewers and boneless chicken thighs with barbecue. Give them about 5 minutes per side (depending on how warm your grill is) and feel free to give them a little extra on the skin side to get the skin nice and crispy.
- Turn the vegetable skewers occasionally. Then remove them and the chicken from the grill when they’re done cooking.
- Place chicken on a cutting board and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Then grab your razor sharp KUMA knife and slice it into strips.
- Add fresh basil, grilled veggies, and pine nuts into your pot with pasta and mix. Set aside a few pine nuts for garnish.
- Serve in bowls or plates with pasta salad topped with grilled bbq chicken slices and the remaining pine nuts as garnish.
Simple recipe for summer pasta salad with grilled chicken thigh
The perfect summer pasta salad with bbq marinated boneless chicken thigh cut into strips and topped with roasted pine nuts for a wonderful nutty flavor. Chicken thigh is our favorite part of the chicken as the meat is juicier, more tender, and more flavorful, and we love buying the bonesless versions so that we can use it to cook anything that would otherwise call for chicken breast. You also get the chicken skin this way which becomes nice and crispy when grilled.
If you get your chicken pre-marinated it really cuts down on the prep time required.
Easy meal prep ideas for lunch and dinner
Pasta salads are a great food for your meal prepping! Just scale up the ingredients to match the amount of pasta salad you wish to make so that you’ve got yourself a nice, large batch which you can divide up in your smaller food-safe containers to store in the fridge. The salad will stay fine in the fridge for 3-5 days. Voila, you’ve got yourself amazing lunch box food or dinner for the next few days!
Pasta salad with grilled vegetables and chicken
This is really a pasta salad with lots of flavor and filling. We’ve mixed the entire batch of pastas with green pesto to give them that nice and edgy taste while also helping keep them smooth from the oils in the pesto. Furthermore we’ve added grilled vegetables and bbq chicken, not to mention our roasted pine nuts and fresh basil. There are really a lot of elements here with loads of great flavor.
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