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 hen tortellini, we love utilizing tortellini in each which means round right here!
Which brings me to this superb 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 type goes. The tomato sauce dressing is slightly candy, slightly tangy, and slightly spicy. It’s critically addictive. Whip up this simple tortellini pasta salad for lunch, dinner, or as a aspect. It’s certainly one of 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 recent spin on pasta salad. Tortellini is a enjoyable twist that lends much more taste to this pasta salad. You’ll be able to swap out cheese tortellini on 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 mild, recent, and scrumptious. That being stated, there’s at all times the choice to swap in a creamy dressing or French dressing, whichever you like.
Elements You’ll Want
These are the substances you’ll want, however as with most pasta salad recipes, nearly the whole lot is versatile! I’ve included notes beneath and extra variation concepts in a while. Scroll all the way down to the printable recipe card for the complete recipe particulars, adopted by a step-by-step with photographs.
- Tortellini – You’ll want a bundle of your favourite recent or frozen tortellini. I take advantage of four-cheese tortellini, however you possibly can substitute a veggie or meat-filled selection. It’s as much as you. And in the event you don’t have tortellini, be at liberty to swap it for an additional pasta, like penne, shells, rigatoni, and so on.
- Roasted Purple Peppers – My favourite is the jarred roasted purple bell peppers from Mezzetta. I’ll additionally generally substitute store-bought peppers with do-it-yourself purple pepper relish. I at all times have it within the pantry!
- Olives – These may be inexperienced olives, black olives, kalamata, or any mixture of olives you’d like. In the event you dislike olives, depart them out.
- Purple Pepper Flakes – You’ll be able to skip these in the event you’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’ll be able to change store-bought with do-it-yourself sauce, too.
- Basil – Recent basil chopped into skinny ribbons is finest. You’ll be able to substitute dried basil in a pinch (on this case, you’ll want 3x the quantity of dried basil).
- Feta Cheese – You would 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 below chilly water. This stops the pasta from cooking additional, which may 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 slightly anchovy paste for some umami richness.
- Add pesto. For a taste enhance, stir in recent basil pesto, spinach pesto, or parsley pesto. You would 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 would additionally toss in chopped grilled hen or shredded air fryer rotisserie hen.
- Totally different dressing. In the event you’d favor to swap the tomato dressing for one thing else, borrow the Italian dressing from my Italian pasta salad, or attempt any of my do-it-yourself 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 hold it refrigerated. You may also 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 data is an estimate and offered as courtesy. Values might fluctuate in line with the substances and instruments used. Please use your most popular dietary calculator for extra detailed data.
Tips on how to Make Tortellini Pasta Salad
This simple tortellini salad comes collectively very quickly flat following the steps beneath.
