Greek Pasta Salad

Pasta salad season is here! Classic flavors of a crisp Greek salad – green pepper, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, feta cheese, and kalamata olives – come together in this bright, fresh pasta salad.

I know it’s summer when my pasta salad craving kicks in. I’m not sure what it is about pasta salad, but I just love it. Perfectly cooked pasta, intermingled with veggies, all tossed in a flavor-packed dressing – I mean come on, it’s so good and it’s a great way to add whole grains to your meal.

This Greek pasta salad starts with a simple dressing made with olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, minced garlic, oregano, Dijon mustard, and a little salt and pepper. The dressing is poured over pasta and ingredients you’d find in a traditional Greek salad – green pepper, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, feta cheese, and kalamata olives. The result is a light and delicious Greek pasta salad.

My favorite, go-to pasta shape when making pasta salad is rotini. It’s the perfect vehicle to deliver maximum flavor in every bite of pasta. The corkscrew shape of rotini provides lots of crevices to hold ingredients like crumbled feta cheese and chopped olives as well as the dressing. Other shapes that work really well in pasta salads include elbow, small shells, penne, campanelle, orecchiette, gemelli, and rotelle. Another consideration when selecting the pasta is size; look for bite-size shapes that are easy to pick up with a fork.

One of the best ways to boost the nutritional value of any pasta salad is to select a whole-grain pasta. From a dietary fiber standpoint, whole-grain pasta has three times as much fiber (6 grams per 2-ounce serving) as regular pasta made from refined flour (2 grams fiber per 2-ounce serving). A fiber-rich diet may help reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.

If you’ve tried whole-grain pasta in the past and were turned off by the slightly bitter taste and chewy texture, I’d give it another chance. I find today’s whole-grain pastas to be far superior to their predecessors. The flavor is very mild, and the texture is a lot less grainy.

Pasta salads are a really nice way to introduce fiber-rich pasta to those who are less than enthusiastic about trying this whole grain. There are so many other flavors and textures in pasta salads, that the pasta itself becomes less of a focus. In today’s Greek pasta salad, you have the crunch and freshness of the vegetables, the brininess of the olives, the tang of the feta cheese, and a tart, herby, Greek dressing. Honestly, I don’t think anyone would know that whole-grain pasta was used in this scrumptious salad.

To your health,

Darlene

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GREEK PASTA SALAD

Yield: 9 servings

Serving Size: 2/3 cup

Prep: 15 minutes

Ready: 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

• 2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

• 1 3/4 cups dry rotini pasta, whole grain preferred

• 1 cup chopped green pepper

• 1 cup chopped seedless cucumber

• 1 cup grape tomatoes

• 1/3 cup diced red onion

• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

• 1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, roughly chopped

DIRECTIONS

1. To prepare dressing, place oil, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, mustard, salt, and black pepper in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Seal jar, shake to combine, and refrigerate until ready to use.

2. Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt if called for. When done, place pasta in a colander, rinse with cold water and drain well. Add pasta, green pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, onion, feta cheese, and olives to a large bowl. Pour dressing over pasta mixture and stir gently to combine. Serve chilled.

Cook’s note: 1 3/4 cups dry rotini pasta yields 2 3/4 cups cooked.

Pasta Salad Tip: Flavorful dressings used in pasta salads will cling better to cooked pasta that has been drained really well. One easy way to get your cooked pasta nice and dry is to place it on a few sheets of paper towel. Just let the cooked pasta hang out on the paper towel while you prepare the other ingredients.

Nutrition Information per Serving

126 Calories, 7 g Total fat, 1 g Saturated fat, 0 g Trans fat, 3 mg Cholesterol, 224 mg Sodium, 15 g Total carbohydrate, 2 g Dietary fiber, 1 g Total sugars, 0 g Added sugars, 4 g Protein, 0 mcg (0%) Vitamin D, 35 mg (2%) Calcium, 1 mg (6%) Iron, 99 mg (2%) Potassium

© 2023 RECIPES MADE HEALTHY BY DARLENE ZIMMERMAN, MS, RD LLC

Greek Pasta Salad

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