Tortellini Salad Alla Maddalena
296 days ago
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This Tortellini Salad Alla Maddalena is pretty straight-forward, but is requested all of the time at our house. It is probably because of its complex, salty, tangy flavor from all the different cold cuts, cheese and red wine vinegar.
Preparing the Ingredients
Most of the prep work for this recipe is for the cold cuts and cheese. Cutco’s Cheese Knife is a great choice for dicing up the provolone cheese, hot Soppressata and sweet Soppressata.
For the deli ham, we used a half-inch thick piece from the deli and cubed it using the 7-3/4″ Petite Slicer. It has a longer blade than the Cheese Knife for slicing across the length of the ham.
If accessible go to your nearest Italian market to buy fresh cold cuts for this recipe, it makes all the difference. Also, we like to keep the cheese and cold cuts a little chunky, but you can cut them to whatever size you prefer.
Once everything is cut up, the recipe comes together pretty quickly.
Making the Salad
Using multi-colored cheese tortellini makes the salad look really nice. The colors, along with the colors of the pickled onions, roasted peppers, cheese and deli meats, make it look irresistible (and it is!).
After cooking the tortellini, let it chill in the refrigerator. While that’s happening, mix up the simple dressing of extra-virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, salt and pepper.
Toss everything together and mix with a large spoon. Cutco’s Basting Spoon is large enough to combine the ingredients well.
A few cooking notes. You can use whatever tortellini you like, but with this recipe and dressing, cheese works best. Do not add salt and pepper to this salad because the cold cuts already have so much of it. Also, use quality extra-virgin olive oil, because it’s the base for the dressing. Bitter extra-virgin olive oil will throw off the flavor.
Make sure to chill this Tortellini Salad Alla Maddalena and serve cold. Chilling overnight is good, too!
This salad is good any time of year, but it’s one we make on rotation during the summer.
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 1 14-ounce bag of cheese tortellini
- 1 14-ounce bag of tri-color cheese tortellini
- 1/4 cup banana peppers
- 1/4 cup pickled onions
- 1/4 cup roasted peppers
- 1/2 cup pimento-stuffed olives
- 8 ounces provolone cheese, diced
- 2 thick slices of hot Soppressata, diced
- 2 thick pieces of sweet Soppressata, diced
- 1/2 inch thick cut of deli ham, diced
- Salt and pepper, to taste
For the dressing:
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- Fresh oregano, to taste
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Directions
- In a large pot over high heat, bring water to a boil and add the tortellini. Cook according to package instructions, drain and let tortellini cool in refrigerator until chilled.
- Make your dressing by combining all ingredients into a separate bowl and whisk.
- In a large bowl, add the cooked and chilled tortellini.
- Top the tortellini with a little bit of the dressing to loosen.
- Add the rest of your ingredients, mix and enjoy!
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