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Tuscan Pasta Salad is an easy pasta salad with sun dried tomatoes, peppers spinach, and olives tossed in a tangy dressing. This pasta salad is perfect for your next potluck!Â
This recipe was inspired by our local market that creates delicious pasta salads. I was in the end of my pregnancy and we wanted to have our friends over for a barbecue. Because I was so uncomfortable and just weeks away from having my baby, I really didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time in preparing for a barbecue. So I bought this Tuscan Pasta Salad and it was the hit of the BBQ. I knew that I had to recreate it at home with a few of my personal touches!
This pasta salad is so simple to create but big on flavor. The original one from our local market just had peppers, sun dried tomatoes, and olives, but adding the spinach gave it an extra pop of color and was the perfect addition.
This pasta salad was perfect! It was a great change from the traditional pasta salads and was such a huge hit. The tuscan flavors came together so well in this easy to make pasta salad.
It is absolutely perfect for your next potluck or summer gathering. This salad gets tossed with the best homemade tangy dressing. I also love that it gets tossed with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Because cheese is life. Am I right?
You are going to love this recipe just as much as we did!
Tuscan Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 16 ounce bowtie pasta cooked and drained in cold water
- 1 7 ounce jar sun-dried tomatoes in oil drained
- 1 red bell pepper diced
- 1 6.5 ounce can sliced olives
- 1 cup spinach
- 1/4 cup basil chopped
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Dressing:
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon dry oregano
- 1 teaspoon dry basil
- 1 clove garlic
- black pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large bowl combine pasta, sundried tomatoes, bell pepper, olives, spinach, basil, and parmesan cheese. Toss until combined.
- To make the dressing: In a small bowl whisk olive oil, vinegar, water, salt, sugar, oregano, basil, garlic and salt and pepper.
- Drizzle the dressing over the pasta salad and serve.
Nutrition
Serves: 6
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods and portion sizes per household.
whoever said to add some shredded to the bland tasting salad was right!! chicken adds flavor and appearance. I have used a balsamic vinegarette which does add some flavor. If I use the recommended salad dressing, they are usually not very good.
Pretty bland, even after adding more vinegar. Not really sure what to add to help it out a bit. Maybe some chicken? Seasoning wise tho I’m at a loss.
I found it to be quite bland too so I changed the dressing outright the next time around, and added shredded rotisserie chicken 🙂
1/4c EVOO
2tbsp balsamic vin
1/2tbsp honey
If I make this recipe the day before do I wait to add the dressing until the day I take it to a potluck.
Yes, that will be best!
What kind of olives do you recommend?
I drained a can of black olives that were already sliced.