Greek Pasta Salad
It’s officially Summer! And you know what that means, right? Vine ripe tomatoes and cucumbers filling the gardens and farmer’s markets along with fresh herbs. And cold summer salads, one of my favorite things to eat. I love a traditional Greek Salad with briny olives, sweet tomatoes and earthy feta and combining those flavors with some pasta makes it a treat good enough to bring to a summer picnic and hearty enough for a Meatless Monday meal. The salad would also be a delicious accompaniment to grilled chicken, lamb kabobs or grilled fish.
This recipe could not be easier. If you can’t find tiny grape tomatoes or Sweet 100’s just dice up the sweetest tomatoes you can find. Fresh oregano is delicious, but dried will also work in a pinch.
Give it a try and let me know what you think!
Greek Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 8 oz short piece pasta cooked
- 6 oz grape tomatoes
- 6 oz cucumber cubed
- 1/3 cup diced red onion
- 2 oz kalamata olives pitted and cut in half
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh oregano chopped
- 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil plus 1 teaspoon.
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 oz feta cheese crumbled
Instructions
- Cook the pasta until tender, drain, toss with a teaspoon of olive oil so that the pasta does not stick together and allow it to cool in a large bowl.
- Cut the cucumbers into cubes, and dice the red onion. Make sure the kalamata olives are pitted and cut in half.
- In a small bowl whisk together the red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.
- In the large bowl with the pasta, mix in the grape tomatoes, diced cucumber, diced onion and fresh oregano. Mix in the vinaigrette and then fold in the feta cheese.
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5 Comments
Simone
Haha, I had almost the exact same Greek pasta salad this week too! It must be he time of year!
formerchef
Oh my gosh, that is funny! I originally made the salad when working on an article on summer salads for a magazine and this one was the “one too many” that didn’t make it in! 🙂
Eugene Smith
I wanted to share with you my experience with this recipe. First, I omitted the onions since I don’t like raw onions and I increased the amount of veggies: 10 oz. grape tomatoes, a whole cucumber, and added in more olives. It just seemed like an enormous amount of pasta for the ratio of the veggies. That is always going to be a matter of personal taste but it could be because of the type of pasta I used. I didn’t have the twisty pasta (rotini?) that you used, so I used what I had on hand – a product by Mueller’s called ‘cut macaroni’, which is similar in shape to ziti. Everything else I stayed to the original. I think of this salad as a cross between a macaroni salad and a Greek salad and it was good when first made. However, this salad really began to hit its stride after about three days in the refrigerator – that ‘melding together’ thing! It would be great to make up ahead of time – an excellent variation on the cold salad that is going in my file.
Anastasia
Perfect salad. Just the right proportions of the ingredients. Thank you!
formerchef
Thank you!