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Pesto Pasta Salad

Posted by Elise on Jul 5, 2006

Filed under Pasta, Quick, Salad, Vegetarian

Pesto Pasta Salad

The season for potluck barbecues is here and a quick and easy dish to prepare for a gathering is pesto pasta salad. Spiral pasta catches and hold the bits of basil pesto. You can dress up the pesto and pasta with any number of things; cherry tomatoes, nuts, peas, and olive tapenade is what I had on hand for this particular version, but you could also add goat cheese, slivered almonds, sun-dried tomatoes, or snow peas.

What's your favorite summer pasta salad? Let us know in the comments.

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Pesto Pasta Salad Recipe

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Ingredients

  • 4 cups uncooked spiral pasta (use rice pasta for wheat-free version)
  • 1 cup fresh basil pesto
  • 2 Tbsp chopped green olives, or olive tapenade
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 1 cup frozen peas, defrosted (or fresh if you can get them)
  • 12 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Several fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • Salt and pepper

Method

1 Cook pasta according to instructions on the package. Make sure the water is salted (at least a half teaspoon per quart). Remove pasta from heat and strain when pasta is cooked, but still firm (al dente).

2 Put pasta in a big bowl. Mix in fresh basil pesto, green olives, and pine nuts. Gently mix in cherry tomatoes, peas, fresh basil leaves and olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Chill or serve at room temperature.

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Indexed: Basil, Pasta Salad, Pesto

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27 Comments

When the tomatoes get good, here's one I like, and vegetarians always appreciate:
http://verbatim.blogs.com/verbatim/2005/06/another_pasta_s.html

Posted by: Karen on July 6, 2006 4:23 AM

My favorite is Greek Pasta Salad -- with cucumber, tomatoes, red and green peppers, Kalamata olives, onion, feta and red wine vinaigrette dressing. Chicken can be added for an entree salad. Tricolor rotelle pasta is a colorful choice for the salad.

Lou

Posted by: Lou on July 6, 2006 9:26 AM

I know you asked for favorite pasta salads, but this sounds wonderful Elise, and the timing couldn't be better as I have picnic food to prepare for our blues festival up here this weekend. I would use a low glycemic pasta, like Dreamfields, and keep everything else the same.
Thanks!

Posted by: Christine on July 6, 2006 10:03 AM

I combine styles and do a cheese tortelini pesto pasta salad with sundried tomato, black olives, red onion, pine nuts, feta cheese and red/orange or yellow peppers. I made this just over the weekend and it always gets finished up quickly!

Thanks for the great blog - I love lurking here.

Linda

Posted by: TwinMamaLinda on July 6, 2006 10:35 AM

What a coincidence! I just made this salad for the fourth with a few variations. I added one cup of fresh parmesan cheese to the pasta and pesto, then added chopped olives, grape tomatoes, red onions, green peppers, yellow peppers and red peppers to the top so the picky eaters could eat just the veggies they liked. It was such a hit, there were no left overs!

Posted by: Cindy on July 6, 2006 10:43 AM

Mmm this sounds great. I like to make my pesto salad by combining penne pasta with marinated artichoke hearts, peas and of course pesto.

Posted by: Neena on July 6, 2006 1:00 PM

I don't make pasta salads in general, but I found this one a year or so ago and rather like it. It's Orzo with Everything from epicurious.com. It also works with quinoa instead of orzo.

Posted by: Meilin on July 6, 2006 6:04 PM

OK--my favorite is tuna pasta salad. Consists of (you can figure out the proportions):

Rotini
Canned Tuna
Mayonnaise
Lemon Juice/Worcestershire/Dijon mustard
Balsamic Vinegar
Dash of sugar
Salt/Pepper (of course!!)
Green Onion
Basil and or Dill and or Tarragon (if you have an herb garden like I do...or use dried)
Chopped, seeded tomato

Serve on a bed of romaine or iceberg and with more lemon wedges :)

Posted by: Charlene on July 6, 2006 8:22 PM

I happened to make a similar meal after visiting my parents for the 4th of July. They sent me home with, among other glorious things, a squash and some green beans from their garden, plus some pesto made from their own basil.

I sauteed the squash and beans with a chopped up tomato in extra virgin olive oil and white wine, and then I mixed in the pesto. I threw in some extra pine nuts because I love them so much, and tossed the whole thing with Rotini.

In the summer, you really can't go wrong with fresh veggies in pasta.

Posted by: Caroline on July 6, 2006 8:55 PM

Hi Elise, it's lunch time here and I wish I could have this right now! It looks so appetising and I love the addition of peas. Great picture, as always.

Posted by: keiko on July 7, 2006 4:10 AM

Hi Elise, I made this salad for a light dinner last night. I have an abundance of Basil and will be making this salad again soon. We all loved it even my little boys. Thanks again for sharing a great recipe.

Posted by: s on July 7, 2006 8:43 AM

This is a great one - I've made a similar one many times, but my standby is rotini with lightly steamed red peppers, broccoli and sauteed onions, dressed by good seasons italian dressing (made with balsamic instead of regular vinegar) - it's really easy to make and tastes great.

Posted by: Dahlia on July 7, 2006 11:05 AM

I don't know if it's called anything; it's just something I came up with one summer day, when I was hungry for something that would fill me up but not cause me to feel heavy after eating.
Rotini (or spiral) pasta
Sliced green and red/yellow peppers
Cucumbers cut into slivers
Grated cheese of preference
Wishbone Romano-basil vinaigrette

Posted by: Connie on July 9, 2006 1:08 PM

I love pasta salads! This one sounds great. Here is my favorite:

artichoke hearts
black olives
roasted red peppers
mushrooms (fresh sauteed or straight from a can)
tricolore rotini
7 seas italian dressing (made with red wine vinegar)

Posted by: k on July 11, 2006 1:17 PM

This is terrific. I've made it 3 times since posted, and given the recipe to many friends. I'm like you GOTTA try this. Thanks, another great recipe.

Posted by: beth on August 23, 2006 1:06 PM

I just made this and my husband and I both loved it - he's a bit picky about non-meat dishes so thanks so much! :)

Posted by: sam on October 22, 2006 4:03 PM

My favourite pasta salad is this:
Boil pasta, penne preferably, drain and let cool down. Then add just a little olive oil and stir. then add salt, pepper and dried Italian herbs to give the pasta a nice flavour. Mix with iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, canned corn kernels, capsicum and whatever other veggies you might like.
Great with chicken and Italian salad dressing.

Posted by: Mikaela on February 23, 2007 9:51 PM

I made this last night, but left out the peas and added sundried tomatoes. My family loved it!

Posted by: kristie on July 29, 2007 7:20 AM

tri-color radiatore
sun dried tomatoes
roasted red peppers
oil cured olives
artichoke hearts
pickled jalepenos
sliced fresh garlic
olive oil

Cook pasta. Dice all veggies in quantities you like best. Heat oil and garlic until fragrant. add tomatoes, jalepenos, olives, peppers and heat through. Toss with pasta and artichoke hearts. Serve warm or cold.

Posted by: jasi on August 27, 2007 11:24 AM

I have been looking for good salad recipes for a long time, although I am not the biggest pesto fan I finaly gave in, found the pasta pesto recipe & decided to give it a try. Everyone loved it so much! Not even one pine nut could be found in the dish! I enjoyed it just as much & plan on making it again soon.

Posted by: abby on January 27, 2008 6:10 PM

My favorite pasta salad is as follows:

-tri-color spiral pasta
-whole black olives
-cut up artichoke hearts
-italian dry salami slices (cut into smaller pieces) a whole stick of salami cut up works well too
-cubed colby jack cheese
-parmesean cheese
-italian or light italian dressing

I like to make this ahead of time for camping since you don't have to cook it and it tastes great with all the typical camping foods!

Posted by: Melissa on May 19, 2009 4:35 PM

How I like my basil pesto salad is:
Pasta either Rotini or Penne (cook accordingly)
Basil Pesto sauce (fresh basil, EVOO, one or two garlic clove/s, pecorino cheese, pine nuts (optional) salt and pepper to taste
Puree in a blender or a hand blender

Once pasta has been cooked and cooled (with cool water) fold on gently the following ingredients:
Pesto sauce
Roasted Red peppers (sliced)
Black Olives (sliced or halved)
Fresh small Mozzarella balls
Fresh basil leaves for garnish
Grated pecorino Romano cheese
People usually love it!
Tell me what you think...;)

Posted by: Joanne on May 20, 2009 8:01 AM

I LOVE this recipe. This is wonderful recipe and I could eat it all :) but my husband keeps reminding me that he is in the room too. Very easy to make and I use your pesto recipe too. Thank you!!!!

Posted by: Liz on August 24, 2009 3:04 PM

De-lish!!! :-))

Posted by: constance on October 17, 2009 11:27 AM

I want to make pesto (with fresh basil and pine nuts) but I do not have a food processor. Can I use the blender instead or the blender's coffee grinder attachment?
Thanks,
N

A coffee grinder attachment might work. You could also use a mortar and pestle, or just chop everything very fine. ~Elise

Posted by: Nora on October 21, 2009 3:13 AM

I love this recipe and I hold it near and dear to my heart because it was a few years ago that I discovered Simply Recipes.com by "googling" pesto pasta salad and coming across this recipe! Great recipe and a great blog!

Posted by: Juanita on June 15, 2010 11:40 AM

This recipe is great. Actually one of my favorite(I am a big pesto lover). You know what would blend well with this? What i prepared in 15 min yesterday. Yesterday i did roughly the same thing but as a gratin. I added Goat cheese,pin nuts and emmental cheese on top. I like when the Pasta are a bit crunchy so i first put the pasta on the fry pan before putting everything in a pot and in the oven. Man it was delicious, my wife loved is and the cherry on the cake the kids loved it:-)

Posted by: Marc Chambaud on May 9, 2011 2:34 AM

I apologize for the inconvenience, comments are closed. ~Elise

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