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All-Natural Greek Pasta Salad

Great pasta salad that’ll keep you cool on those hot summer days. It’s packed full of flavor. Vegetarian and vegan friendly.

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Why it works: Banana and feta cheese share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 8 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 8
Prep15 min
Cook30 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Bring a large pan of water to a boil, add the whole wheat rotini and cook until just tender, about 10 minutes. Drain, rinse under cold water, and let it cool completely.

  2. Meanwhile, chop the red pepper, pitted black olives, banana peppers, cucumber and chives as directed, and place them in a large bowl.

  3. In a separate jar or bowl, combine the extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic powder, dried basil, dried oregano, Italian seasoning and black pepper. Shake or whisk until well blended.

  4. Add the cooled pasta to the bowl of vegetables and olives. Pour the dressing over the top and toss until everything is evenly coated.

  5. If using, crumble the feta cheese and fold it gently into the salad, or sprinkle it over the top before serving.

  6. Cover the salad and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the flavors can meld. Toss again before serving and serve cold.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Banana + feta cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).

  2. Olive + feta cheesetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  3. Chive + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together244 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Wheat + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together937 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pasta + chivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, pasta, pepper, olive, chive, cucumber, red wine):

  1. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  2. Cherrybetter flavor fit
  3. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, pasta, pepper, olive, chive, cucumber, red wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).