Tomato, Basil, and Mozzarella Chilled Pasta Recipe

It's a hot summer day. You're walking in the baking streets with your friend, looking for a place to eat. "I want pasta," your friend says. Pasta? It's 100 degrees! "No way," you protest. But your friend is insistent.

Now, this is where chilled pasta comes in!

Chilled pasta is perfect for summer. It is cold, refreshing, and filling. Chilled pasta is similar to pasta salad, but it can be made using tomato sauce or vinegar/oil based dressing. The tomato sauce version is essentially spaghetti - but chilled!

In this Instructable I will share both the tomato sauce and oil-based version of chilled pasta.

The sauce can either be tomato sauce or oil-based dressing. Both taste best when you have fresh, sweet, and delicious tomatoes at hand. The oil-based dressing is better for those of you who want a more light, salad-type meal, while the tomato sauce is better if you want a more classic spaghetti-like pasta.

Oil-based Dressing (Makes 2):

Ingredients:

• 4 medium tomatoes, diced
• 125g mozzarella cheese, diced (make sure to buy the one that comes in liquid)
• 3/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves (make sure you save a few for decoration!)
• 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp mozzarella liquid
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 tsp pesto sauce (optional, this is just for extra flavor. If you don't want to add pesto, try adding something with garlic like garlic salt).

Directions:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
2. Once mixed, refrigerate for 10-20 minutes.

Tomato Sauce (Makes 2):

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 8 medium tomatoes, diced (you can peel the skin if you want a smoother tomato sauce)
• 1 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil (you can also add 1/4 of a garlic, minced)
• 1 cup torn fresh basil leaves (leave some for decoration!)
• 125g mozzarella cheese, diced (unfortunately, I did not have any at the time so in the pictures you will not see any mozzarella cheese!)
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add tomatoes and garlic-infused olive oil. Cook, stirring often until the tomatoes become very soft.
2. Add basil leaves, mozzarella cheese, and salt and pepper. Cook until the sauce comes to a boil. When the sauce is finished, most of the tomatoes will have broken apart and become very soft.
3. Transfer the sauce to a medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

This recipe works well with thin pasta. I would recommend either spaghetti or capellini. I used capellini for this one!

Directions:

1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook 200g pasta according to the packaging instructions.
2. Drain and rinse the pasta with ice water until the ice melts (the ice melts surprisingly quickly!).
3. Let the pasta drain for about a minute and transfer to a large bowl.

After the sauce has been chilled, remove from the refrigerator. Combine the sauce and pasta, and voila! You are ready to serve!

You can decorate the pasta with a few basil leaves if you want.

Hope you enjoyed this recipe :)