And the Winner Is: Mango Magic Pasta Salad!

I wrote this up as part of a bigger article on Midnight Poutine, but you should know that it’s the best one on the page. There’s something amazing about the sweetness and the thickness of the mango. You don’t even cook the sauce. It’s so healthy and delicious. there are a bunch of textures – chewy noodles, crunchy peppers, smooth, slippery sauce. Ooh I love it. so much better than the hospital egg salad sandwich option placed in front of me tonight. Thank goodnss for vending machine organic nuts and fruit. Who knew?

Oh, I also made the noodles from scratch with my gluten-free flour blend in my small pasta maker, but use whatever pasta you want. I’ll show the noodles I made later and give the mini-recipe at some point. Feel free to demand it sooner if you’re really interested.

This pasta/salad is perfect on its own (I’m not which to call it since it seems much more luxurious than salad but is not hot like most pasta), but you can also throw in some mango liqueur. Buy mangoes and wait until they’re perfectly ripe, or even one day past perfectly ripe (I know this requires a lot of patience, so buy in bulk from Leopoldo’s in Jean-Talon. If you buy. You want them to be at the point where they’re more syrup than liquid, so they coat the pasta in a thick glaze. Also, feel free to add more diced vegetables to the salad, use different kinds of pasta and different herbs.

Mango Dressing:
2 sweet yellow mangoes, very ripe (these are nicer for the recipe than the green and red ones)
1/3 cup vegetable or chicken broth (preferably organic and without a lot of sugar or salt. They’ll throw off the balance of the ingredients)
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice (it makes a difference, so use bottled only if you absolutely have to)
2 tsp olive oil (if your mangoes are thick and syrupy enough you can use less or none of this, but it’s so little anyway, and the salad is already so low in fat)
1 cloves of garlic, peeled

Salad Ingredients:
1 lb pasta of choice (spirals, fusilli or rotini are the best since sauce sticks to them well)
1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped (or cilantro, or basil, etc.)
1 cup diced bell peppers, diced (red, orange, or green, or a mix)

1. Cook the pasta. When it’s done, drain the pot and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. Drain again and leave to air dry while you make the sauce. The only way you can mess this up is with soggy pasta.
2. Slice the sides off the mangoes and scoop out the flesh with a spoon into a food processor or blender. Cut however you can around the pit and scrape all the juice and mango meat into the blender. Mangoes are a bit messy, but the sauce gets blended, so it doesn’t have to be pretty. 3. Add the rest of the dressing ingredients and blend.

4. Put the chopped herbs and peppers along with the cooked and drained pasta in a large bowl.

Add the sauce and stir to combine.