Pasta salad with dried cranberries is a sweet and savory salad with holiday flavors but it can be enjoyed in any season. It has a delicious silky dressing made by cooking cranberry juice with spices that coats all the ingredients, making the salad irresistible.
Most of the salad recipes on my blog are summer salad recipes but today I am sharing the recipe for a salad that's more suitable for the colder days.
The recipe is for cranberry pasta salad. It's a pasta salad with dried cranberries, chickpeas, vegetables, and nuts. The best part of the salad is its silky sweet, sour, and savory spiced dressing that coats all the ingredients.
Though it has autumn flavors, it's made with ingredients that are easily available throughout the year at almost the same price. So, if you are missing holiday flavors in the non-holiday season, make this tasty pasta cranberry salad and enjoy it.
And, if you want to try more pasta salad recipes then you can try my rainbow oro salad, pesto orzo salad, chickpea orzo feta salad, and sundried tomato pasta salad.
What's needed to make cranberry pasta salad?
To make this cranberry pasta salad, you will need the following ingredients:
Ingredient notes and substitute suggestions
- Pasta: You can use any shortcut pasta to make this salad.
- Chickpeas: Homecooked or canned, both are fine. You can use other beans too like kidney beans, cannellini beans, etc.
- Baby spinach: Feel free to use any salad green of your choice.
- Roasted almonds: Instead of almonds, pecans, walnuts, pistachios, or cashew nuts can also be added. Just dry roast the nuts before using. The nuts become crunchier and tastier after roasting.
- Maple syrup: You can also use agave syrup, honey, or sugar.
- Balsamic vinegar: Red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar can also be used.
Other ingredient details and nutritional information are shared in the recipe card.
How to make (step-by-step instructions)?
Step 1: Put cranberry juice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dried cranberries, minced garlic, salt, chili flakes, cinnamon, rosemary, ground black pepper, salt, maple syrup, and cornstarch in a cooking pot.
Step 2: Cook while continuously whisking until the dressing thickens. Turn off the heat and keep the dressing aside. Allow it to reach room temperature.
Step 3: Cook pasta al dente and strain.
Step 4: Transfer cooked pasta to a large salad bowl.
Step 5: Add baby spinach and cover the leaves with cooked pasta so that the leaves get slightly wilted with the heat.
Step 6: Add chickpeas, onion, cucumber, celery, and chopped roasted almonds.
Step 7: Pour the salad dressing.
Step 8: Gently toss.
Your holiday special cranberry pasta salad with chickpeas is ready to be enjoyed.
How to serve?
This pasta salad can be paired with a lot of different dishes.
Some of the dishes that I like serving with it are grilled or boiled corn on the cob, roasted vegetables, baked potato wedges, garlic bread, and bruschetta.
Storing tips
Store the leftover salad in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3-4 days.
The dressing stored separately in an airtight container will be fine for around a week in the refrigerator.
Recipe tips and tricks
- You can use any shortcut pasta in this salad.
- Feel free to replace chickpeas with beans of your choice.
- Cook pasta al dente and toss it gently while mixing it with other ingredients.
- You can also add other ingredients like orange zest, lemon zest, blueberries, black raisins, nutmeg, etc to the cranberry dressing.
- Use cranberry juice without added sugar. If it has sugar, skip maple syrup in the recipe.
- Season the dressing well otherwise the salad will taste bland.
- You may also add roasted vegetables to make the salad tastier and healthier.
Frequently asked question
Yes, you can use fresh cranberries too.
More easy pasta recipes
Looking for more easy pasta recipes to try? Don't miss checking the following links:
If you liked this recipe, please leave a star rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in the recipe card below. You can also follow me on Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest.
Recipe
Pasta salad with dried cranberries
Equipment
- 1 Cooking pot
- 1 Large strainer for straining pasta
- 1 large bowl for mixing salad
Ingredients
- 400 grams any short cut uncooked pasta
- 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas
- 1 medium red onion thinly sliced
- 1 medium Persian cucumber, chopped around 1 cup chopped cucumber
- 1 stock celery chopped
- 2 cups baby spinach
- ¼ cup roasted and chopped almonds
Ingredients for dressing
- 1.5 cups cranberry juice without added sugar
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup or any sweetener of choice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons red chili flakes
- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper adjust to taste
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- In a pan, put all the dressing ingredients. Put the pan on the stove and cook while whisking continuously until the dressing thickens. Switch off the stove and keep the dressing aside.
- Cook pasta al dente as per the instructions given on its packet. Strain and put the cooked pasta in a large bowl.
- Add baby spinach and cover the leaves with pasta. Leave for 2-3 minutes so that the leaves get wilted.
- Add boiled chickpeas, cucumber, onion, celery, and chopped roasted almonds.
- Pour salad dressing on top.
- Gently toss until the dressing evenly coats all the ingredients.
Video
Notes
- You can use any short cut pasta in this salad.
- Feel free to replace chickpeas with beans of your choice.
- Cook pasta al dente and toss it gently while mixing it with other ingredients.
- You can also add other ingredients like orange zest, lemon zest, blueberries, black raisins, nutmeg, etc to the cranberry dressing.
- Use cranberry juice without added sugar. If it has sugar, skip maple syrup in the recipe.
- Season the dressing well otherwise the salad will taste bland.
- You may also add roasted vegetables to make the salad tastier and healthier.
- More recipe tips and tricks are shared in the post above, please follow them to make this recipe.
Leave a Reply