Quick & Easy Rainbow Pasta and Bean Salad
One thing I love about January is seeing so many people striving to achieve better health. While the start of the new year seems like a great time to revamp your meals and focus on your fitness, this doesn’t mean you need to have a ‘new year, new you’ mantra to be healthy. At nutriFoodie, I hope to empower you to make adjustments to your life at ANY point in time.To make sustainable changes, keep it simple.Rainbow Bean and Pasta SaladEnjoy!For example, making a conscious effort to incorporate plant foods at meals and snacks as often as possible is a small change that can improve health over a lifetime. It doesn’t matter when you start or if you don’t manage to do it for some meals; this is meant to be a lifelong change that you can continue doing without feeling any shame or guilt associated with ‘failure.’ That means no diets or ‘clean eating.’ Increasing your vegetable intake is one simple way to improve overall health with small adjustments. My biggest piece of advice: keep it simple. If you’re already eating meat, starch and veg for dinner try decreasing the portion of meat and starch then increase the veggies. A good rule of thumb is to fill half your plate with veg.In view of adding more plants to our plates, one of my favourite recipes is my Rainbow Pasta and Bean Salad. This recipe is awesome because it’s super versatile. You can swap out any of the veggies for whatever you have on hand. Most of the other ingredients are typical pantry staples that you can play around with.Beans add protein and fibre to keep you full and your gut happy. Because this salad is layered and marinated, it can be made in advance and refrigerated until ready to serve AND your family or guests will be impressed with the beautiful display of colours (BONUS!).
Ingredients
For the salad
Instructions
- 1. Whisk marinade in the bottom of a serving bowl.
- 2. Assemble salad layers starting with beans (rinsed and drained) submerged in the marinade. Followed by a layer of each: fennel, red cabbage, carrots, coloured bell peppers, arugula. Lastly, the pasta of your choice on top.
- 3. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.
- 4. Serve with green onions and cilantro (or parsley) on top for garnish.
Notes
Keeping the dressing simple with just salt and pepper instead of all the spices would also work as well.
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