Vegan Summery Picnic Pasta Salad With Italian Vinaigrette

Dreena Burton

Vegan Summery Picnic Pasta Salad With Italian Vinaigrette

A sweet, tangy, herb-infused vinaigrette lends complexity to this simple summery pasta salad recipe.

Share this
Serves: 4
Print

To develop the flavor of this pasta salad from Dreena’s Kind Kitchen even further, make it a day in advance and store in the refrigerator to let the vinaigrette fully flavor the salad. Swap in chopped roasted peppers, grated carrot, corn, grilled vegetables, green peas, or whatever you have on hand in this easily adaptable recipe.

What you need:

For the Italian Vinaigrette: 
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1½ teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon celery seed
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
⅛ teaspoon black pepper
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1½ teaspoons tahini
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

For the pasta salad: 
4 cups cooked and cooled fusilli pasta  
1 cup chopped bell pepper 
1 cup diced cucumber 
1 cup quartered cherry tomatoes 
½ cup chopped zucchini
½ cup chopped artichoke hearts
½ cup sliced and pitted kalamata olives 
3 tablespoons diced red onion 
3 tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes 
Italian Vinaigrette (see recipe above)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

What you do:

  1. For the Italian Vinaigrette, into a blender, add all ingredients and blend until smooth. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to use. 
  2. In a large bowl, combine pasta, bell pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, zucchini, artichoke hearts, olives, onion, and sun-dried tomatoes. Add vinaigrette and stir until pasta and vegetables are coated. Stir in salt and pepper, and serve.
For more recipes like this, check out:

Here at VegNews, we live and breathe the plant-based lifestyle, and only recommend products we feel make our lives amazing. Occasionally, articles may include shopping links where we might earn a small commission, but in no way does this effect the editorial integrity of VegNews.

 

 

Share this

Give the gift of VegNews this holiday season (and get a FREE Plant-Based Holiday Cookbook as our gift to you!). 

GIFT HERE