Trust Me, You Need To Start Using Salad Dressing As Pasta Sauce

I went to make dinner the other night and saw that I had very little in the fridge. At first glance, I spotted a small Tupperware container of blanched broccoli, a few tablespoons of salsa languishing at the bottom of a plastic tub, an empty carton of yogurt (spare me your questions), and the bones and cartilage of a half-roasted chicken that a benevolent family member sent me home with on the first night of Passover. (I was going to use it for homemade stock ... eventually.) 

I was inexplicably tired. My day hadn't been any more taxing than usual, but my body kept the score. This is what it told me: The act of putting on the pants required to descend the stairs of my apartment building to collect a delivery order, let alone go to the grocery store, was simply out of the question. I was stuck with what I had.

Little did I know in my state of hanger that I was about to dig into one of the tastiest dinners of my week — and it was all thanks to a bottle of salad dressing and a box of pasta. 

In order to create a veritable feast, I started by taking all the green things out of the fridge that were more or less salvageable. The broccoli was past its prime, but I spotted some perfectly fine green beans (haricots vert, if you please), a few decent-looking sprigs of dill, and a bottle of green goddess dressing. 

I thought about making a salad and calling it "Green, Three Ways." Instead, I dug into my brain and borrowed my college-age solution to dining on a budget: turn any hodgepodge of ingredients into a sexy pasta dish. I had some rigatoni in my pantry. "It's a hair-brained idea, but it just might work," I said out loud to myself in a Mid-Atlantic accent, my hunger metamorphizing into lunacy. 

I'm pleased to report that it totally, actually did work. I drained the pasta once it was al dente, added it back to the pot, and dropped in the chopped dill, the beans (which I blanched first in the pasta water), and a glug or two of the dressing. I mixed it all together with a dab of butter and plenty of cracked black pepper, and before I knew it, I was snapping pics of the verdant dish and sending it to my family. Here's how the green goddess measured up to homemade pasta sauce. 

Maybe it was my state of culinary desperation, but after taking the first bite of my pasta invention, I wanted to tell everyone I knew about my bona fide salad-dressing-as-pasta-sauce hack. The dressing coated each noodle with a creamy, glossy, grass-green sheen, and the beans and dill added a look of texture and freshness. 

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it tasted very similar to classic pesto, minus the basil. For the uninitiated, green goddess dressing typically gets its hue from fresh green herbs and spinach or watercress, its creaminess from mayonnaise or sour cream, and its brightness from lemon and vinegar. Over pasta, the dressing was the perfect combination of tangy and creamy. I felt like I was eating more vegetables than I actually was. Next time, I thought, maybe I'll add some basil and toasted pine nuts to drive the pesto story home. 

As I cleaned up after dinner, feeling frugal and sated, I thought about all the other salad dressings that could stand in for pasta sauce. With the exception of ranch, which I've never cared for much, I figured nearly any dressing could work. 

Greek dressing would be great over cavatappi with feta, cherry tomatoes, minced onion, and olives. Balsalmic vinegarette would be tasty over farfalle with mozzarella, tomato, and basil as a spin on Caprese salad. Buttermilk-herb dressing, like green goddess, would lend an acidic, vegetal note to stands of bucatini. 

Indeed, the possibilities are endless. To help you dream up a version that suits your palate, go by the following principle: Any dressing that you would eat with a spoon will be delicious over pasta. While you're at it, you might take a page from the book of Japanese comfort food by trying out Napolitan, a spaghetti dish made with ketchup.