Summer Sides with Primula Cheese

Recently Primula challenged me to create some summer side dishes using their yummy soft cheese. I love anything cheesy and I love Summer time so I was looking forward to getting creative in the kitchen!

I started with looking on Pinterest and there are so many amazing sounding recipes on there....sadly, I soon realised my kitchen skills are abit lacking so I decided to keep things simple and rustle up a summery pasta salad and potato salad.

Cheese & Bacon Pasta Salad

The beauty of this recipe is that you can just add whatever you fancy and the quantities do not need to be accurate. Basically cheese and pasta is always a winner, you can't really go wrong with this!

1 tube of cheese & chive primula
1 splash of olive olive
Generous squirt of mayonnaise
A few handfuls of pasta (or as little or as much as you think you will need)
1 red onion, chopped
Cherry tomatoes, chopped
Lean bacon cubes
Sweetcorn
Seasoning

- Cook pasta as normal and run under cold water when done
- Whilst the pasta is cooking, fry the bacon pieces.
- In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together. The cheese is quite thick so I found using the olive oil and mayo thinned it out and made it easier to mix
- Season to taste - I used chilli seasoning to give it a bit of a kick

Really simple, but a really nice dish that is suitable for the whole family. It also goes perfectly with bbqs as we discovered over the weekend!

Healthy Potato Salad

500g small new potatoes

2 tablespoons Tesco Healthy Living lightest mayo

80g Primula Cheese, Light

Spring onion, chopped

1 teaspoon of paprika

- Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes in salted water until cooked, drain then cool

- Mix in a bowl with the other ingredients bar the paprika

- Season to taste and sprinkle the paprika on last

Potato Salad

This can also be adapted for Slimming World - the mayo is only half a syn per tablespoon and the Primula (the light cheese version) can be used as your healthy extra A choice (80g). Another simple yet effective recipe and one that tastes even nicer the following day I think!

Both dishes went down well with the family and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more summery recipes that I can attempt! We love eating outside and hope we get lots more sunshine filled days this Summer!