This zesty pasta salad has lots of texture from fresh vegetables and it's packed with flavor for homemade Italian dressing
As the temps start to heat up, I start to crave pasta salads to pair with fresh grilled salmon, chicken and burgers. Plus you can easily and cheaply make pasta salads to bring to potlucks or bbq's with friends.
This pasta salad calls for minimal ingredients and homemade italian dressing. When you make the dressing yourself, you get to control what goes init! A lot of dressings have less desirable ingredients to make them last longer and more affordable. In this blog post I will share the dressing recipe I like to use and you can use it to dress salads, pasta salads and more!
I like to use small noodles when I make this pasta. I also like to chop the ingredients into little bite sized pieces so it's easier to dig into with a fork. This pasta salad makes a great camping meal (I have tested it a few times and it's always a hit!)
You will see in the photos I used two different pastas, I had two half eaten bags laying around so I combined them together. I suggest elbow noodles, penne or shells for this pasta salad.
Zesty Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked pasta
- 1⅓ cup chopped grape tomatoes
- 1⅓ cup chopped kalamata olives
- ½ cup chopped red onion
- ½ cup goat chesse or feta crumbles
Italian dressing
- ½ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup white vinegar or red wine vinegar
- 2 tbs water
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
- ½ tsp dried oregano
- ¾ tsp dried basil
- ¾ tsp garlic powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ tsp fresh parsley or cilantro for garnish
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package. Set aside. chop al veggies up and toss into pasta.
- Add all the ingredients for the dressing in a jar or blender and mix/whisk togeher. Pour dressing over pasta salad right before serving, toss and sprinkle extra feta/goat cheese on top and serve!
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