Like seemingly everyone else, I’ve spent the past year trying to find practical ways to sneak a little more protein into my day. (No offense to the internet, but I simply cannot look at another eight-egg omelet.) Instead, I’ve become unexpectedly devoted to whipped cottage cheese. Give the old diner stalwart a quick whirl in the blender with a generous glug of olive oil, and it transforms into something entirely different: silky, billowy and spoonable, with just enough richness to stand in for cream without feeling remotely heavy.
What makes whipped cottage cheese especially useful is that it behaves less like a “health swap” and more like a base sauce. It has the body and cling you want from a creamy dressing, but it doesn’t drag a dish down the way mayonnaise sometimes can. It’s also less tangy and assertive than Greek yogurt, which means it can be pushed in almost any direction: lemony and herb-packed, garlicky and ranch-adjacent, smoky with paprika, briny with capers or olives, or even sweet-leaning with honey and fruit. Once blended smooth, it becomes a blank canvas with a little backbone.
For pasta salad, that matters.
Cold noodles need a dressing with enough substance to coat every curve and ridge, but enough brightness to keep the bowl from feeling stodgy after a few hours in the fridge. Whipped cottage cheese does both. It grabs onto the pasta beautifully, especially shapes like cavatappi, fusilli or shells, while still leaving room for olive oil, citrus, herbs and whatever vegetables happen to be in season. Think of it as a creamy dressing that wants to collaborate.
That cloud of whipped cottage cheese is the secret foundation of what may be the lemoniest pasta salad in the world.
It’s blended with an almost unreasonable amount of lemon zest and juice before coating every ridge of cavatappi. Chilled sweet peas and ribbons of summer zucchini are tossed separately with olive oil, more lemon juice and handfuls of fresh herbs. Lemon-marinated chicken breast is cubed and folded in, while sweet onion gets a quick pickle in lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, sugar and salt until it loses its bite but keeps its snap.
The finished bowl is bright enough to make you sit up a little straighter. Creamy without being heavy, packed with herbs and unapologetically citrus-forward, it’s the sort of pasta salad that tastes like someone turned the saturation up on summer itself.
Ingredients
For the lemon chicken
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 cloves garlic, grated
- Kosher salt and black pepper
For the whipped cottage cheese
- 1 cup full-fat cottage cheese
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Zest of 2 lemons
- Juice of 1–2 lemons (about ¼ cup, or to taste)
- 1 small garlic clove
- Kosher salt and black pepper
For the quick-pickled onion
- ½ small sweet onion, very finely diced
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar (or white distilled vinegar)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
For the salad
- 12 ounces cavatappi
- 1½ cups frozen peas, thawed
- 1 medium zucchini, shaved into ribbons with a vegetable peeler
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Juice of ½ lemon
- ¼ cup chopped fresh dill
- ¼ cup chopped parsley
- Freshly cracked black pepper
- Flaky salt, for serving
- Extra lemon zest, for finishing
Directions
- Marinate the chicken. Stir together the olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, a generous pinch of salt and several grinds of black pepper. Coat the chicken and let it marinate for at least 20 minutes (or up to several hours in the refrigerator). Grill, roast or pan-sear until cooked through. Cool completely, then cut into bite-size cubes.
- Pickle the onion. In a small bowl, combine the diced onion with the lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, sugar and salt. Stir well and let stand while you prepare the rest of the salad, giving it a stir now and then.
- Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Cook the cavatappi until just past al dente—you want it tender enough to stay pleasant once chilled. Drain and rinse briefly under cold water until no longer hot. Shake off as much water as possible.
- Whip the dressing. In a blender or food processor, combine the cottage cheese, olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and garlic. Blend until completely smooth and silky. Season generously with salt and black pepper. Taste — it should be intensely lemony.
- Dress the vegetables. In a large serving bowl, toss the peas and zucchini ribbons with the olive oil, lemon juice, dill and parsley. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
- Bring it all together. Add the cooled pasta, whipped cottage cheese, chicken and drained pickled onion to the bowl. Toss until every curl of pasta is glossy and coated. If the salad seems a little tight after chilling, loosen it with another drizzle of olive oil or a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
- Chill and serve. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving. Finish with plenty of fresh lemon zest, more herbs and a pinch of flaky salt. Reserve a few tablespoons of the pickling liquid from the onions. If the salad has been in the fridge overnight, a splash whisked in with a drizzle of olive oil wakes the whole thing back up.
This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.
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