You would be very remiss to not hunt out a farmer’s market in your area and explore this time of year. Sure, you may have to brave crowds and some of the produce might be a bit more expensive than you can find at the store, but it’s also the freshest and most amazing produce you’ll get.

Over the weekend, I took a long stroll through my local market and found some of the most colorful vegetables and made this pasta salad.

While I used a mix of peas, beets, radishes, and carrots for this salad, it’s important that you use what you can find that looks fresh. There’s really no way to go wrong here as long as you are using fresh, crunchy, colorful vegetables.

To deal with the vegetables, especially the sturdier vegetables like I chose, you’ll want to blanch them first in some boiling, salted water. This is far from hard. Just remember to let the larger vegetables cook longer.

I started my beets first and let them blanch for 3-4 minutes and then added all my other vegetables for just a minute or two. They should be bright in color but still crunchy.

Drain the vegetables and rinse them with cold water to stop the cooking or else they will continue to cook and get mushy!

Then you can bring a fresh pot of water to a simmer and cook your pasta while you chop and dice the vegetables. If you get young carrots and beets, you don’t even need to peel them. Just chop them up! The vinaigrette I like for this pasta salad is a nice and light one with some heat and a bit of sweetness. Just whisk everything together and when the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the dressing.

Toss the pasta, dressing and vegetables together and season it with salt and pepper.

You could serve this pasta salad warm or chilled. Either way it’s fantastic and a perfect use of the great produce available this time of year. Get down to your local market and see what you can find (and cook?? and eat)!

Farmers Market Pasta Salad Recipe Instructions

Market Pasta Salad

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 8 Servings Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 pound pasta (I like fusilli)
• 1/2 pound sugar snap (or English) peas
• 6-8 radishes
• 4 small beets
• 10-12 small salt
• 1/2 cup carrots
• Salt and Pepper

• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• Big pinch of salt and pepper

Cooking Directions

1. For vinaigrette, whisk together vinegar with mustard, honey, fresh thyme, and red pepper flakes. Slowly drizzle in olive oil while whisking constantly. Once combined, season with salt and pepper and set aside.
2. To prepare vegetables, cut off any greens or large stems and scrub the carrots. For the peas, remove the string along the front of the peas.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a simmer. Add beets first and blanch for about 4 minutes. Then add all the other vegetables and blanch for another 2 minutes until they are bright in color but still crunchy.
4. Drain vegetables and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.
5. Bring more salted water to a boil and cook pasta according to package. While pasta cooks, chop up vegetables.
6. When pasta is done, drain and toss with dressing. Stir in chopped vegetables and season with salt and pepper.
7. Serve pasta salad warm or chilled.