Italian Pasta Salad

This Italian pasta salad is the perfect side dish to compliment your favorite summer meal! Each bite is filled with juicy tomatoes, marinated artichokes, fresh herbs, salami, and parmesan-covered pasta noodles. It's bright and fresh in flavor and so easy to prepare!

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine American, Italian

Keyword bowtie pasta salad, Italian pasta salad

Freezer Friendly No

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 10

Total Time 40

Servings

Calories 427kcal

Ingredients

1 lb dry fusilli pasta noodles
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained thoroughly
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup marinated artichokes
1/4 cup red onion, sliced or diced small
1/2 cup black olive, sliced
1/2 cup cheese cubes, either mozzarella balls, provolone cheese, or mild cheddar cheese
1/2 cup salami chunks (for thinly sliced salami about 8 slices cut into pieces)
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 Italian Vinaigrette

Instructions

Cook the pasta: Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. When the water is boiling, carefully add the pasta noodles and stir together. Let the pasta cook until al dente in texture (use your pasta packaging for instructions). After the pasta has cooked, strain it and rinse with cold water.
Make the dressing: use either a blender or whisk the ingredients together using my Italian vinaigrette dressing recipe!
Assemble the salad: In a large mixing bowl, add the cooked pasta, all the toppings, and freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano. If ready to serve, drizzle the dressing over top and toss until everything is completely coated in dressing and cheese. Taste it, add additional salt & black pepper if needed, then enjoy!
If you're serving it later: I recommend coating only a 1/2 of the dressing with the salad and then letting it marinate if you're not serving it right away. Then add the remaining salad dressing when it's ready to be served! Otherwise, the pasta will soak up a lot of the dressing and it could result in a dry pasta salad. If the pasta salad is dry after all dressing is used, a little bit more olive oil and vinegar drizzled over the salad will bring it all back to life! Cheers.

Notes

Make it gluten-free. If you'd like this pasta to be gluten-free friendly you can use your favorite gluten-free pasta. We like jovial noodles!

Add different vegetables. To mix up the flavors, you can also add additional ingredients such as chickpeas or white beans, avocado, roasted red peppers, cucumber, fennel, watermelon radish, arugula, or Mediterranean olives.

Nutrition