This Mediterranean tortellini salad options tender cheese-filled tortellini tossed with olives, purple peppers, and feta cheese in a spicy tomato sauce with chili flakes. It’s a straightforward, flavorful summer time aspect dish that’s additionally good for lunches and meal prep!
From my orzo salad with pears, crunchy walnuts, and gorgonzola cheese to these enjoyable tortellini antipasto skewers, and this household favourite rooster tortellini, we love utilizing tortellini in each which means round right here!
Which brings me to this wonderful salad. With briny olives and tangy feta, this tortellini salad is PACKED with scrumptious, daring Mediterranean flavors. I make mine with 4 cheese tortellini, however any form goes. The tomato sauce dressing is somewhat candy, somewhat tangy, and somewhat spicy. It’s severely addictive. Whip up this straightforward tortellini pasta salad for lunch, dinner, or as a aspect. It’s one in all my favourite spins on mayo-free pasta salad, and simply as good for summertime meals.
Issues to Love About This Tortellini Salad
- Mediterranean-inspired flavors. That is a straightforward recipe loaded with candy roasted peppers, briny olives, and tangy feta with tomato sauce, with a touch of crushed chili warmth.
- A contemporary spin on pasta salad. Tortellini is a enjoyable twist that lends much more taste to this pasta salad. You may swap out cheese tortellini in your favourite meaty or vegetarian filling.
- No mayo. Tomato sauce rounds out the tacky tortellini and makes this tortellini salad wealthy and saucy with out mayo. It’s gentle, contemporary, and scrumptious. That being stated, there’s all the time the choice to swap in a creamy dressing or French dressing, whichever you like.
Components You’ll Want
These are the elements you’ll want, however as with most pasta salad recipes, nearly all the things is versatile! I’ve included notes beneath and extra variation concepts in a while. Scroll right down to the printable recipe card for the complete recipe particulars, adopted by a step-by-step with pictures.
- Tortellini – You’ll want a bundle of your favourite contemporary or frozen tortellini. I take advantage of four-cheese tortellini, however you’ll be able to substitute a veggie or meat-filled selection. It’s as much as you. And for those who don’t have tortellini, be happy to swap it for one more pasta, like penne, shells, rigatoni, and many others.
- Roasted Purple Peppers – My favourite is the jarred roasted purple bell peppers from Mezzetta. I’ll additionally generally substitute store-bought peppers with home made purple pepper relish. I all the time have it within the pantry!
- Olives – These may be inexperienced olives, black olives, kalamata, or any mixture of olives you’d like. When you dislike olives, depart them out.
- Purple Pepper Flakes – You may skip these for those who’re delicate to spice, and easily keep on with salt and freshly cracked pepper for seasoning.
- Tomato Sauce – Select your most popular jarred tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce. You may change store-bought with home made sauce, too.
- Basil – Recent basil chopped into skinny ribbons is finest. You may substitute dried basil in a pinch (on this case, you’ll want 3x the quantity of dried basil).
- Feta Cheese – You can additionally use goat cheese or parmesan.
Suggestions and Variations
- Instantly rinse the tortellini after cooking. When you’ve boiled the tortellini, instantly drain and rinse the pasta underneath chilly water. This stops the pasta from cooking additional, which might make it mushy.
- Salt the pasta water. The key to flavorful pasta? 1-2 heaping spoonfuls of salt added to the water earlier than boiling. This is applicable to any pasta dish, chilly or heat.
- Extra add-ins. I like adapting this tortellini salad with extra Mediterranean-inspired add-ins like capers, sun-dried tomatoes, toasted pine nuts, mozzarella pearls, chopped artichoke hearts, and even somewhat anchovy paste for some umami richness.
- Add pesto. For a taste increase, stir in contemporary basil pesto, spinach pesto, or parsley pesto. You can additionally skip the tomato sauce and change it with pesto as an alternative for a pesto tortellini pasta salad.
- Add protein. Bulk up this pasta salad with protein like sliced pepperoni, salami, prosciutto. You can additionally toss in chopped grilled rooster or shredded air fryer rotisserie rooster.
- Completely different dressing. When you’d desire to swap the tomato dressing for one thing else, borrow the Italian dressing from my Italian pasta salad, or strive any of my home made salad dressings. A lot of them double for pasta salad dressings, too!
Make Forward and Storage
This chilly tortellini pasta salad is nice for meal prep. Make it as much as 2 days forward and preserve it refrigerated. You may as well retailer any leftovers hermetic within the fridge.
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Cook dinner the tortellini. Boil the tortellini in line with bundle instructions. Drain and rinse; let utterly cool.
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Assemble the salad. In a serving bowl, mix cooked tortellini, chopped purple peppers, inexperienced olives, purple pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and tomato sauce; stir till totally combined.
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Garnish and serve. Add ribbons of basil leaves over the salad, and sprinkle with feta cheese. Serve chilly.
- This salad may be made 1 to 2 days forward. Maintain refrigerated.
Energy: 378kcal | Carbohydrates: 44g | Protein: 18g | Fats: 15g | Saturated Fats: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fats: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fats: 2g | Ldl cholesterol: 56mg | Sodium: 1374mg | Potassium: 189mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 660IU | Vitamin C: 14mg | Calcium: 274mg | Iron: 3mg
Dietary information is an estimate and supplied as courtesy. Values might differ in line with the elements and instruments used. Please use your most popular dietary calculator for extra detailed information.
How one can Make Tortellini Pasta Salad
This straightforward tortellini salad comes collectively very quickly flat following the steps beneath.
