I know, I know...it's late September, but pasta salad is a hit in my kitchen all year round. It's time to celebrate, because I became a second time aunt yesterday! My brave sister gave birth to a baby boy. Hurray! He might be a tad young for this salad, but it's a little virtual birthday party for him. This delicious pasta salad recipe is actually a remake of one of my old recipes on this page. It needed some tweaking and a new photo. This recipe is also in my cookbook "Vegan Dinner Party". I don't usually share recipes from my books online, but I wanted to make an exception for this. And here's more great news - I'm writing a brand new and ultimately delicious eBook with exclusive recipes! It will be sold here on VeganSandra.com, so definitely stay tuned if you're in need of new fabulous recipes.
I've made this salad countless of times. It comes together in 15 minutes and tastes amazing. Sun-dried tomatoes have this strong and satisfying umami flavor. If you blend them with garlic, basil and a tiny bit of curry (an everlasting secret ingredient of mine), it will make a flavorful pesto. Mix it with boiled pasta, feisty red onion and luscious olives and you have a wonderful festive main dish. It's so easy to make that it suits perfectly for a weeknight meal, too!
Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 4 - 6 people
Salad:
- 3 ½ cups / 250 g uncooked pasta (farfalle for example, gluten-free, if needed)
- 14 oz / 360 g pitted Kalamata olives or black olives
- ½ red onion
- 10 cherry tomatoes
Pesto:
- 1 cup / 200 g sun-dried tomatoes in oil (use all of the oil too)
- 4 handfuls fresh basil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- pinch of ground black pepper
- ½ tsp curry powder
- (salt to taste, if you are using unsalted sun-dried tomatoes)
Boil the pasta until al dente. Drain it, rinse with cold water and mix it with olives, thinly sliced red onion and chopped cherry tomatoes. Make the pesto: blend sun-dried tomatoes and their oil with basil, garlic, black pepper and curry powder. Mix the pesto with pasta. Taste and add salt, if needed.
