Creamy Rainbow Tortellini Pasta Salad

June. Summer officially begins and Miya is out of school and the apartment reorganizes itself around a six-year-old who is home all day, every day, full of energy and opinions and the bottomless appetite of a child in a growth spurt. She eats constantly. She eats onigiri and edamame and tamagoyaki and fruit and yogurt and more onigiri and the onigiri consumption alone would concern me if I didn't know that this is what growing looks like: rice in, height out, the body converting fuel into inches with the efficiency of a machine designed for exactly this purpose.

I made somen salad — cold wheat noodles on a bed of shredded vegetables with a sesame-soy dressing, the summer lunch that takes ten minutes and feeds a six-year-old and a thirty-six-year-old and leaves enough for tomorrow. Somen salad is the summer workhorse, the meal that appears three times a week from June to September, the rice bowl's cold-weather counterpart, the thing I make when the question is "What's for lunch?" and the answer needs to arrive faster than the question.

Miya and I have a summer cooking project: we are working through Fumiko's recipe cards, one per week. This week: tamagoyaki. I taught Miya the way Fumiko taught me, which is the way Fumiko was taught, which is: stand next to me and watch. Then try. Then try again. Miya's first tamagoyaki was a scrambled egg that she rolled into a cylinder and declared "perfect." It was not perfect. It was brave. Bravery and perfection are different things, and at six, bravery is the one that matters.

I have started a new writing project alongside the blog — personal essays for publication, the longer-form writing that the book has trained me for. I submitted an essay to a literary journal about cooking with anxiety — about the way the ritual of chopping, measuring, and stirring can quiet a noisy mind. The essay is honest about the SSRI, about the yoga, about the three AM kitchen, about the daily negotiation between the brain that panics and the hands that cook. The honesty costs something every time. The cost is worth it every time.

Somen salad is our family’s answer to the endless summer lunch question, but when I don’t have somen in the pantry, this creamy rainbow tortellini pasta salad steps in without missing a beat — same spirit, same speed, same ability to feed a ravenous six-year-old and still have leftovers for tomorrow. After a morning of tamagoyaki practice and egg-scrambling that Miya declared “perfect” with complete conviction, I needed lunch to be the thing that required nothing of me. This salad is exactly that: cold, colorful, done before she’s finished washing egg off her hands.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 25 min (plus 30 min chilling) | Servings: 6

Ingredients

20 oz refrigerated cheese tortellini
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup yellow bell pepper, diced
1 cup cucumber, quartered and sliced
1/2 cup red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup black olives, sliced
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup frozen corn, thawed
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

Cook the tortellini. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook tortellini according to package directions until tender, about 7–9 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water until completely cool.
Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, sour cream, white wine vinegar, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper until smooth.
Combine. In a large bowl, toss the cooled tortellini with cherry tomatoes, bell pepper, cucumber, red onion, olives, carrots, and corn.
Dress and toss. Pour the dressing over the salad and stir gently until everything is evenly coated. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
Chill. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving to let the flavors come together. The salad keeps well in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Serve. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve cold straight from the fridge.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Rainbow Tortellini Pasta Salad — The Summer Workhorse That Shows Up When You Need It