This Canned Vegetable Is The Perfect Addition To Your Pasta Salad

Few foods are more well-suited to a warm afternoon picnic than a pasta salad. Fresh, colorful, flavor-packed, incredibly easy to make, and equally difficult to mess up, it's a potluck staple 101. When it comes to assembling the dish, the noodles themselves are your blank canvas, and you can garnish them to your heart's content. But if you want to give your salad a particularly sophisticated, Mediterranean-inspired touch, then canned artichoke hearts should be on your shopping list.

Artichoke hearts, the tender base beneath the choke of the flower bud, give any pasta salad the missing link that can instantly make it the showstopping recipe everyone wants to nab from you. They offer a sturdy, almost meaty texture that adds volume and substance, while maintaining enough softness to still feel delicate. They absorb flavor and suit a myriad of sauces — from a basic sherry wine vinaigrette to pesto — and add a fragrant, aromatic note that transcends more basic pasta salads.

The thing about canned artichoke hearts is that you get all the benefits of eating this delight of a vegetable without the dexterity or elbow grease needed to actually prepare a freshly bought one. Artichokes are notably fiddly, and removing their leaves and getting all the way to the heart can be a burdensome process, especially if you're short on time and willpower. Getting them pre-trimmed in a tin or jar removes this process entirely, while the acid — typically lemon juice or vinegar — used in their marinade gives them that bright, tangy taste that complements a pasta salad especially well. The key here is ensuring you drain them properly — you don't want any excess liquid watering down your salad.

Pasta salad isn't exactly the most traditionally faithful rendition of the Italian dish — Italians actually generally prefer "insalata di riso," or rice salad, as their cold summer lunch go-to. However, with the addition of artichoke hearts, your dish connects to a centuries-old tradition in Italian cooking.

Artichokes have been a longstanding feature in the country's cuisine, especially in Rome's Jewish community, where they're prepared "alla giudia" (Jewish-style) — deep-fried until crisp. Romanesco, a particularly large variety of artichoke, has been a staple of the Italian capital's culinary tradition for centuries and is a hallmark of spring produce — a prized showcase in Rome's Campo de' Fiori market and across the former Jewish Ghetto. Today, Italians themselves often like to consume jarred artichoke hearts — "carciofini sott'olio" — and add them to their salads, pizzas, and even pastas, without needing to wait for the year's first flowers to bloom to get their hands on them.

How you season and garnish your jarred artichoke hearts for your salad matters, although some varieties already come with added herbs. If you want to take a cue from the Roman tradition — carciofi alla Romana — the classic way is with garlic, parsley, mint, and generous extra-virgin olive oil. That being said, the direction you decide to take also depends on your other ingredients, and artichoke hearts work well with a variety of flavors — from classic pasta salad herbs like basil to umami-rich olives and capers, or grated cheeses like pecorino, ricotta salata, and Parmigiano-Reggiano.