For most of the country, our introduction to colorful pasta came in the grocery store, where a select few boxes of muted spinach or tomato pasta sat among the sea of beige. Though chefs have been creating much more vibrant versions of fresh colored pastas, one blogger has built a reputation for making pasta that’s the brightest of them all. Linda Miller Nicholson began as a food blogger with a relatable problem: her five year old son didn’t like vegetables.
Nicholson may not be the first parent to try to hide vegetables in her kid’s food, and while some chefs say you should be upfront about what your kids are eating, turning vegetables into vibrant colored pasta is just too much fun to say no to. The best part of Linda’s pasta? All of the ingredients she uses to dye her noodles are entirely plant-based. From tomato to peppers, turmeric, herbs, spices, beets, and cabbage, her pasta makes for what can only be termed edible art.
One of the hallmarks of Nicholson’s pasta is the way she manages to create patterns, some of which mimic the great patterns that have been woven into fabric over the years, all out of pasta dough alone. Most of her incredible creations are featured on her Instagram, where she may be better known as Salty Seattle. Nicholson also shares videos that include tutorials for a number of her special patterns and shapes on her YouTube channel, so her work isn’t all show and no tell.
Having lived in Italy for several years, Linda has brought some age-old Italian techniques to her rainbow-hued innovation, especially with regards to making pasta shapes that are lesser known to American audiences. She then gives each of them her own spin by playing with and layering the colors in the dough.