Roasted Garlic Blue Cheese Pasta Salad

5 from 4 votes

Roasted Garlic Blue Cheese Pasta Salad

A simple creamy blue cheese pasta salad recipe made with fresh produce tossed in a double umami creamy roasted garlic miso blue cheese dressing. If you're not a fan of blue cheese, it can easily be omitted from the dressing and still have the umami flavors from the miso!

Prep Time15

Cook Time10

Total Time25

Course: Salad, Side

Cuisine: Asian American Fusion

Servings: Servings

Calories: 632kcal

Author: Joyce Lee

Ingredients

3 cups pasta (raw)
1 cup baby tomatoes
1-2 stalks green onions
½ cup fresh peas
2 radishes (optional)
1 cup baby arugula or spinach (optional)
any additional fresh local produce you enjoy!

Creamy Roasted Garlic Miso Blue Cheese Dressing (Makes approximately 1 ½ cups of sauce)

½ cup mayonnaise
½ cup sour cream
2 tablespoons white miso (shiro miso)
3 tablespoons blue cheese (add more if you want it to have a stronger blue cheese flavor)
1 bulb garlic

Instructions

Roasting Garlic

Pre-heat the oven to 400F (200C)
With a sharp knife, cut the top of the garlic bulb off (approximately ½ inch down from the top)
Place the garlic bulb on top of a a sheet of foil and drizzle the exposed garlic cloves with oil liberally. I like to use about 1 ½ tablespoons of oil. Add the top back on top of the garlic.
Cover garlic with the foil completely into a foil ball and place it on a oven safe pan so that the oil doesn't drip to the bottom of the oven.
Add the pan into the oven when the oven has reached 400F and bake it for 40-50 minutes. You'll know they are done when you poke the garlic cloves with a fork and they are soft.
Once it is done, remove it from the oven and let it cool before handling it.

Cook the Pasta

Cook 3 cups pasta using the instructions on the packaging to 'al dente' consistency.
Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and set it aside to cool

Making the Blue Cheese Dressing

Once the roasted garlic has cooled, remove the cloves out of the bulb and place it in a bowl. (approximately 8-10 cloves)
Add2 tablespoons white miso and 3 tablespoons blue cheese to the roasted garlic and mash it with a fork until it is everything is combined
Add in ½ cup sour cream and ½ cup mayonnaise and mix everything together until you get a creamy and thick dressing. Set aside in the fridge until you are ready to assemble the salad.

Putting It Together

Place the cooked pasta into a large bowl
Wash all the fresh produce
Finely chop 1-2 stalks green onions and place it in the bowl with the pasta
Add ½ cup fresh peas into the bowl
Add in the blue cheese dressing. If you don't like to use a lot of dressing, use 75% of the bowl of dressing and save the rest as a vegetable or chip dip.
Mix everything very well until everything is combined. If you are making this ahead of time, place it in the fridge until you are ready to serve it before adding the rest of the fresh produce.
(optional) Mix in 1 cup baby arugula or spinach right before serving
(optional) If you are using radishes, thinly slice them and add it on top of the salad before serving
Cut 1 cup baby tomatoes in half and place them on top of the salad right before serving.
Enjoy!

Notes

Depending on how much dressing you like on your pasta salad, you may have extra sauce. The sauce keeps well in the fridge for a week. I like to use it as a vegetable dip or potato chip dip when I have extra sauce.
Blue Cheese - There are many types of blue cheese. For a milder blue cheese, use Gorgonzola. For a sharper blue cheese flavor use Roqueforts. The general rule is, the lighter the mold the milder the blue cheese.
Miso - For the dressing, I like using white miso (shiro miso) since it has a more delicate sweeter flavor that won't overpower the dressing.
Pasta - For this particular recipe, I used chiocciole pasta. You can use any type of short pasta, that you like best! (macaroni, farfalle, fusili, conchiglie etc.)
Sour Cream - I like to use full fat sour cream for this to make it extra creamy. I like to use organic sour cream without preservatives and find that they are usually creamier and have the most flavour. The ingredients should only contain milk/cream, milk powder, enzymes and bacterial cultures.

Nutrition