Recipe: 25 things to mix into your pesto pasta salad

It's summer salad time at my house, which means that there's almost always some kind of salad in the refrigerator that's great as a side with some grilled meat or perfect as a main course for the lunchbox.

At my house, we love pesto pasta salad. We'll make our own pesto when the basil in the garden is ready, but I also use jarred pesto from the store. (We like Classico or Trader Joe's pesto.)

To make the pesto pasta salad, I mix an eight-ounce jar of pesto with a one-pound box of pasta, cooked.

You can use any kind of pasta, but I like to use pasta with little nooks and crannies like shells, cavatappi, rotini or bowties.

Once the pasta and pesto are mixed up in a big bowl, I'll add lots of other ingredients to add even more flavor to the salad.

1. Grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

2. Green peas, thawed

3. Feta cheese, crumbled

4. Kalamata olives, pitted and halved

5. Cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

6. Roasted broccoli, chopped

7. Zucchini or summer squash, diced, cooked or raw

8. Red onion, diced

9. Spinach, raw, chopped

10. Mozzarella cheese, diced

11. Parmesan cheese, shredded

12. Green beans, cooked

13. Provolone cheese, diced

14. Basil, fresh, chopped

15. Pine nuts, toasted

16. Chicken, diced

17. Asparagus, roasted or blanched

18. Ham, diced

19. Chickpeas, drained and rinsed

20. Carrots, grated

21. Sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

22. Almonds, slivered

23. Arugula

24. Black olives

25. Peppers, roasted

I generally add about two cups of a mix of other ingredients to my pasta and pesto. Depending on how much you add, you may want to mix in a bit more pesto too or add a drizzle of olive oil to moisten a salad that's a day or two old. Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers.