Greek Pasta Salad

A greek salad turned into a pasta is a great, easy and healthy meal to make this summer.Suitable for picnics, lunch by the pool or outdoor parties, it just gets better the longest it stays in the fridge, all the flavours mix together. I’ve used also an integral fusilli pasta to make it healthier.

Who doesn’t like greek salad? and Who doesn’t like pasta? right? This dish is the best of 2 worlds. The only ingredient missing here is the cucumber which I thought wasn’t fitting so well with the integral pasta.

The dressing is quite similar to the Greek salad dressing only with no vinegar. I’ve used a simple lime juice, and not much of it. Also, I’ve add onion sprouts as the lettuce replacement, it gives a nice crunchy texture, imitating the salad. This meal is a great vegetarian dish, perfect for those meatless days and it’s filled with vitamins, without saying… the kids will love it too!

The magic of “Pasta Salads” is all in the coccion of your pasta, it’s really important to always cook your pasta in a quite salty water. Also if you over cook your pasta the texture won’t hold up as nice, so try to always take them off just before they are actually done. This way you will get a real “al dente” fusilli. Also, for pasta salads, you have to add the olive oil as soon as the pastas are drained to prevent them from sticking together.

So let’s make this summer dish!

Greek Pasta Salad

Ingredients

• 500g of integral pasta of your choice
• about 30-40 cherry tomatoes cut into 2
• a few cracked open kalamata olives
• 1/2 a sweet onion finely slices
• onion sprout *optional
• 200g of feta cheese cut into cubes
• fresh thyme or dry oregano, thyme mix
• salt, pepper

the dressing

• 100 ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove finely chopped
• a few squeezed lime to taste

Directions

1. Cook the pasta, drain
2. Mix all the ingredients and the dressing
3. Serve immediately or cool down first in the fridge

Serve with extra lemon on the side. Enjoy! απολαμβάνω!