butternut pasta salad

Pasta salads like this one are always best with a generous shaving of parmesan cheese. This is a great tasting healthy recipe that takes no time to put together. The butternut is sweet, rocket peppery and parmesan rich, it’s a real beaut. It takes a total of about 30 minutes including the roasting. I always use a potato peeler to get long thin sheets of parmesan. (4 people)

What you need

1 medium butternut (500g)
Olive oil

250g dry pasta (use twirls, shells or even broken curly lasagna sheets)
250g rocket
1 cup parmesan shavings

Dressing

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon crushed garlic

The process

Heat your oven to 220 Celsius.

Halve, clean and peel the butternut, then slice it into pieces about 5mm thick.

Lightly oil a baking tray, place the butternut on the tray and drizzle over a little more olive oil. Bake for about 25 minutes, turning after 15 minutes. Remove and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

While the butternut is cooking, cook your pasta in the largest pot you have with plenty of salted water. Drain, leaving a small amount of water in the pot so that it does not go sticky.

Whisk the dressing ingredients together very well in a small bowl.

Rip up the rocket and add to a bowl, add the butternut, pasta, parmesan and all of the dressing. Toss well and serve straight away.

This recipe is up there with the seared salmon and mango salsa, as one of my summer favorites.