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A Pasta Salad made with fresh Mediterranean salad ingredients and drizzled with an incredible Lemon Herb dressing!
Loaded with so much flavour and perfect for any occasion, everyone goes crazy over this pasta salad! My Grilled Lemon Herb Mediterranean CHICKEN Salad has been a HIT with readers around the world, but many have been asking how to turn it into a vegetarian pasta salad version.
Here it is!
Easy Summer Pasta Salad
Adding pasta to this salad is not only a delicious vegetarian version, it’s a HUGE HIT with everyone I’ve asked to try it. Loaded with everything mediterranean:
- Cucumbers
- Olives
- Sun dried tomatoes
- Feta cheese
- Bell peppers (capsicum)
- Lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Red onion
- Creamy avocado pieces!
You can’t go wrong!
Meal in a salad? YES! Meat free? YES YES!
I kinda feel like saying, ‘Look ma! No meat!’
The Perfect Pasta Salad Recipe
Being a cold pasta salad makes it perfect for summer. It can be made up to a day in advance, leaving the avocado and tomato until ready to serve to keep them as fresh as possible. You can leave out some of the ingredients if you wish, or make it completely your own and add whatever you like!
This salad is extremely versatile and a forgiving recipe.
Pasta Salad Dressing
Using the same dressing as the Mediterranean Chicken Salad to keep all of your favourite flavours packed into this salad, you guys are guaranteed to love this version just as much! Perfect for parties, gatherings, pot lucks, or just for a family dinner.
What to Serve with this Pasta Salad
This pasta salad goes well with just about anything! You can of course serve it as a side salad to accompany any of the following meals:
- Garlic Herb Butter Roast Chicken
- Lamb chops
- Seared salmon or any other fish
- Oven fried chicken
- Greek Lamb Souvlaki
- Turkey burgers
- Beef burgers
- Seared lemon chicken thighs
The options are endless with this salad. You can add in marinated artichokes, fire roasted peppers, goats cheese instead of feta, arugula or spinach instead of or with the lettuce, etc!
Need more side salad inspiration? Try these!
Avocado Greek Salad & Greek Salad Dressing
Potato Salad with Bacon & Dill Pickles
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Lemon Herb Mediterranean Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 12 ounces penne pasta dried
FOR LEMON HERB DRESSING:
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice fresh squeezed
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons garlic minced
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano minced
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 pinch cracked pepper to taste
FOR SALAD:
- 4 cups Romaine lettuce or cos lettuce leaves, washed and dried
- 1 cucumber large, diced
- 1 avocado peeled, pitted and chopped
- 1/2 red pepper large, deseeded and cut into thin strips
- 9 ounces grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/2 red onion thinly sliced
- ½ cup pitted kalamata olives sliced
- 1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil drained
- 5-6 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese
Instructions
- Boil the pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente. Drain in a colander or strainer, then rinse under cold water to take the heat out. Transfer the pasta to a large mixing bowl.
- While pasta is boiling, prepare your dressing. Whisk together all of the marinade/dressing ingredients in a large jug.
- Add all of the salad ingredients into the salad bowl along with the pasta, and drizzle with the dressing. Toss all of the ingredients together until everything is coated evenly in dressing. Season with extra salt and pepper, if desired.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This salad is fantastic! Flavours and textures work very well together. It’s a very refreshing pasta salad. Highly recommended!
Keeper! I served mine as a side to Salmon and it turned out to be the perfect combo.
I absolutely love this recipe and have made it several times. However, please be aware that the calorie count is not correct – not even close. I just imported the ingredients into MyFitnessPal and came up with 583 calories for 10 servings. Still it is healthy and delicious – I just want serious calorie counters to beware.
Agreed! The carb count for a pasta salad being 3g is a dead give-away that there might have been a glitch in the nutrition calculation! I suspect it was calculated without the pasta (dressing and salad ingredients only).
What a refreshing salad, esp on an 85F day!
How much is a serving? Thank you
I just made this for dinner and all I can say is awesome, absolutely awesome! It’s definitely a keeper in my recipe file. Thanks.
Made this yesterday! Served it cold. Then, today it was chilly & rainy, so I filled a soup bowl, added more cheese & heated it in the microwave & it was equally as divine hot, as cold.
Made this and it was absolutely delicious!! So great to prepare just one meal that both vegetarian hubby and myself could enjoy together. Thank you!
I’m loving all these lovely pasta salads that everyone is making for summer! This looks so good. The dressing sounds perfect.
This looks delicious and I’m constantly on the look out for veggie options for hubby. Thanks, this is going on the menu for this week!
PERFECT! Love all these fresh flavors! 🙂
– MAK
Would this be good if I were to make it the night before to bring to work the next day as my lunch? I’m just wondering about the avocado…if it would go bad by the time I go to eat it.
Hi Liz. You can prepare it the day before without the avocado 🙂