Cold Salad with Pasta is for the days when you want to have just salad for lunch or dinner. It looks and tastes amazing and I usually make this in 10 minutes if I have my vinaigrette in the fridge. This dressing adds an awesome taste to the cold pasta salad.

You can also try it as a filling for some interesting sandwiches. It can be packed in the lunch box as a great meal and will keep you alert and active.

Jump to Recipe

The colourful salad in a bowl, with a serving spoon ready next to it — I can eat a whole bowl of this!

The feta cheese adds a wonderful look and feel to it. It has many health benefits, but contains a higher amount of sodium. Hence you must adjust the salt only after adding the feta cheese to the salad.

Steps to the Cold Salad with Pasta

Preparation time

Make a batch of the vinaigrette, in case you do not have it ready. However, ideally it must rest overnight. This is essential as it infuses and extracts the best flavour of the ingredients into the dressing.

Assembling the ingredients on the table to make the cold salad with pasta — Getting set will be so worth it!

Cook the whole wheat pasta in the usual way, and drain the water.
Chop the peppers/capsicum into the size you prefer. Larger is better, but children will find the smaller sizes easier to eat.
Cook mushrooms by simply adding them to a pan and heating it, covered. When the water evaporates, take it off the heat.
Keep the feta cheese ready.

Mixing the Salad

Mixing the ingredients with a large fork and spoon — This is the fun part!

In a large bowl, first mix together the pasta, mushrooms and vegetables. I cut the pasta up as it was too big. Now add the salad dressing.

The dressing is carefully poured after stirring it well. — Don’t add too much of the dressing. You can always add more if you really need it.

Around 2-3 tablespoons of the salad dressing will be needed for this salad. Decide based on the amount of flavour you want.

Finally add the feta cheese.

The feta cheese is added to the cold pasta salad — The feta cheese is crumbly, add it towards the end. It will look more appetising.

After you add the feta cheese, check the seasoning. This is because the feta cheese is usually salty. So now is the time to add salt and pepper, to taste.

Chill the salad for at least an hour in the fridge. Serve on some lettuce leaves. Enjoy!

Cold Salad with Pasta

Recipe by Sheetal RabindranCourse: SaladsDifficulty: Easy

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

A salad that will blow you away with its presentation and flavour. And no compromise on health either.

Ingredients

2 cups cooked pasta
3 bell peppers/capsicum, of different colours, chopped
200 g feta cheese, crumbled
15 mushrooms, quartered and cooked
2-3 tbsp of my vinaigrette dressing
1 bunch lettuce, leaves separated and cleaned

Directions

Toss the pasta, bell peppers and the mushrooms together.
Add the prepared vinaigrette dressing. Toss well.
Mix in the feta cheese.
Check the seasonings. Add more salad dressing, salt or pepper if you wish.
Chill for at least one hour. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves.

Notes

Add fresh herbs if you can.
Use whole wheat pasta.