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Tangy and flavorful tortellini pasta salad with feta and Mediterranean veggies, this recipe will become a favorite for quick meals and delicious sides!
Mediterranean Pasta Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 20 oz cheese tortellini
- 2 cups english cucumber diced (sliced and quartered) about 1 cucumber
- 1.5 cups cherry tomatoes sliced and halved
- 6.5 oz marinated artichoke hearts diced
- 1 cup feta cheese crumbled
- 1/2 cup kalmata olives halved
- 1/3 red onion diced (about 3/4 cup)
Dressing
- 1/3 c olive oil
- 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp dijon mustard optional
- 1 tsp minced garlic
Instructions
- Cook tortellini according to directions on package and let cool
- Prep and chop the rest of the salad ingredients and add to large bowl
- Mix all dressing ingredients in small bowl and whisk
- Add cooled tortellini and dressing to bowl. Mix and serve
Use it As a Side or Main!
Something I love about this Mediterranean Pasta Salad Recipe is that it can be whatever you want it to be. Want it as a side for a BBQ? check! Quick and easy dinner? Oh yes! Leftovers for meal prep? You know it!
How to Make it a Side
This one is easy. It’s ready to go!
How to Make it the Meal
You can use as is, or if you’d like to add more protein, you could add some cooked chicken or a can of rinsed chickpeas!
Use Mediterranean Pasta Salad for Meal Prep
I love using this recipe for leftovers. It’s such a delicious lunch for the next day! Because of the tomatoes and cucumbers though, it may get a bit soggy after a few days. I would say it’s best used within 2-3 days of making. This is usually not a problem, though, since it gets eaten before then!
One Bowl Meal
This meal is packed with flavor, color, and nutrients! We have our fiber (veggies), fat (dressing), carbs (pasta), and some protein (feta and cheese in tortellini – though you can add to this if you’d like as stated above). It’s a pretty balanced meal all in one. These can be my favorite types of meals, especially for quick dinners or easy lunches! That way we don’t have to worry as much about what to pair it with. And less dishes is always a win in my book!
Why is the Recipe First?
I’m glad you asked! I know it can get overwhelming to be excited about a recipe, then have to scroll through a seemingly never-ending life story before finally finding the recipe. I started to notice it becoming a difficulty for some of my nutrition counseling clients. So that’s why I’ve created No Guilt Nutrition Recipes – a place where finding the actual recipe isn’t so difficult or cumbersome. Usually the recipe is hidden in a blog post or you have to pay a subscription to see the recipe quickly, but here you’ll find it first on the page!
Why Are the Recipes Called “Intuitive Eating Recipes”?
No Guilt Nutrition recipes are definitely not the only thing you can eat if you are eating intuitively (really, you can eat anything that you want/feels good to your body!), but I noticed there are way too many diet culture entrenched recipes out there. These recipes give you good food without potentially triggering numbers or diet talk. They also provide a gentle nutrition approach by encouraging balance in your meals without having strict requirements for what that may look like for you as an individual.
