Easy Penne Pasta Salad

One thing that is incredibly important for us (and has been even before we had children) was to eat dinner together as a family.

It’s our time to connect. Our time to learn about each others days. To listen to engage and to be brought back together.

After a blessing, and once we start eating, the conversation starts (as well as requests for different food, more food, a new fork, a different drink, a cup like her sister’s etc) as we start learning what everybody did during the day.

It really connects us. And many times the conversations include life lessons. For example, we always listen to our teachers, we always use our forks or spoons to eat, we keep our feet off the table, we don’t hit our friends, we use nice words like “please” and “thank you” and many more. And, even with disgruntled faces over turns, everybody worked together to create our lunch.

During Family Forward, last month, we learned about Barilla’s efforts for Sharing the table. It’s not about a huge elaborate meal, but sitting down together, learning how to read a recipe and putting a meal together as a family.

We bonded over pasta and made the Penne Pasta Salad with grilled chicken, roasted peppers, sun dried tomatoes, arugula, fresh mozzarella and basil. {PRO tip, do not, I repeat, DO NOT allow the kids to “salt to taste” because they will dump in the entire salt serving yielding your special gluten free individual portion completely not edible!}

It’s nice to see a company that values bringing the family together at the dinner table because it seems more and more than companies don’t value the family dinner time.

Print Recipe

Penne Pasta Salad

Prep Time10 mins

Cook Time10 mins

Total Time20 mins

Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 Box Barilla Penne
• 4 tbs Olive oil
• 2 each Roasted red Bell Peppers diced
• ½ cup Sun Dried Tomatoes in oil, chopped
• 3 cups Baby Arugula
• 2 balls Mozzarella fresh, diced
• Salt to taste black pepper to taste
• ½ Lemon juice
• 4 leaves Basil chopped
• 2 cups chicken grilled, diced
• Preparation 10 minutes preparation + 10 minutes cooking

Instructions

• Grilled and dice 2 cups of chicken breast.
• Prepare pasta according to box, less one minute.
• Drain and toss with 1 tbsp olive oil, place on sheet tray to cool down.
• Place in a large bowl and add all remaining ingredients
• Toss to combine