There can be nothing more delicious than a cold and crunchy salad during the summer season, right? This Mediterranean pasta salad is full of flavor, fresh and crisp textures. Overall, this pasta salad with a zesty lemon dressing is perfect for a picnic or a meal in the garden.
Why are you going to love this pasta salad?
This pasta is easy to make, nutritious, and full of flavor. Also, this Mediterranean pasta recipe is good to make with any pasta. I have made it with pasta made with chickpea flour (affiliate link), lentil flour, gluten-free pasta, and traditional pasta. It tastes amazing with all of them.
Mediterranean pasta salad ingredients
- Pasta, as I told you before, any pasta is fine. I prefer short pasta like shells, farfalle or penne
- Cucumber, I use English cucumber that has less seeds or the small cucumber that also has less seeds and does not need to be peeled.
- Scallions, if you can’t find scallions you can use red onion. Remember that a good tip is that if the onion becomes very strong, rinse it with cold water.
- Diced tomatoes, or halved cherry tomatoes. I’ve also made this pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and it is fantastic.
- Mint or spearmint leaves
- Kalamata olives
- Zesty Lemon Dressing:
- Lemon, juice and zest.
- Garlic, fresh. Alwyas use fresh.
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Dried oregano
- Salt
How to make this pasta salad
- Cook the pasta following the instructions on the package. When ready, drain it and rinse it with cold water.
- While the pasta is cooking, chop the vegetables and put everything in a salad bowl (affiliate link).
- Make the dressing. I like to use a jar, because it makes it easier for me to calculate the ingredients and then mix.
- Combine the dressing with the pasta and chopped vegetables. Mix carefully and finish it up with more fresh herbs if you whish.
Ideas to kick it up a knotch
You can add chickpeas or beans to this pasta if you want it to be a little more filling. If you want to add some greens, spinach, arugula or romaine lettuce would work perfectly. If you add artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, and sliced or diced mushrooms it would also be fanstastic.
Other recipes that you may like:
S here is the recipe for this perfect salad, a perfect Mediterranean pasta salad to take to a picnic, to the beach, to a concert, wherever you go. If you like it please take a photo of your salad and share it on FB or Instagram. If you are making this later, save it on Pinterest. It would also be incredible if you give it 5 stars and / or if you tell me how it went in the comments section; if you have doubts or ideas also put them there.
Mediterranean pasta salad
Equipment
- Salad bowl
Ingredients
- 1 8 oz pasta package
- 1 large cucumber diced, I use English cucumbers
- 4 scallions (white and green part) sliced
- 2 medium diced tomatoes
- 1/4 of cup of mint leaves in julienne
- 1/2 cup pitted and chopped kalamata olives
Dressing
- 1 tablespoons Lemon, juice and zest, about 3 tablespoons of juice
- 1 clove garlic crushed and finely chopped
- 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt
- freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Cook the pasta as indicated on the package. When it’s done, set it aside to cool down.
- Chop the tomato, cucumber, and tomato and set aside and place in a large bowl.
- Put all the dressing ingredients in a jar and mix.
- Add the pasta to the bowl along with the vegetables and mix carefully.
- Add the dressing and mix.
- Finish with fresh mint and kalamata olives
Nutrition
information
Nutritional information of this recipe is only an estimate, the accuracy for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
This recipe first appeared in Piloncillo & Vanilla in July 2016.
I have a Profesional Certification in vegan cooking; in the world of cooking based on vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes… in clean, organic and vegan food.
My cookbook is called Yo Cocino Latino..
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