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I have a hard time eating leftovers for lunch every day. Instead, I’m always hunting easy yet tasty lunches that don’t take much prep work. I know that sounds like a unicorn, but it’s not! My healthy pasta salad checks all the boxes (and has a good amount of protein as well). Feel free to keep it a vegan with the vegan feta or toss in your favorite cheese if you can tolerate it.
While I created this healthy pasta salad with lunch in mind, it works great as a shareable side at as a healthy BBQ side dish, potluck or family meal.
How to Make Healthy Pasta Salad
I set out to create this healthy pasta salad after Rawkstar Jennifer told me she was looking for quick and healthy recipes that her high schooler could take to school. I love how the different flavors mix in this recipe without meat or dairy.
Cook the pasta
Follow cooking directions on the pasta package, allowing the pasta to remain slightly undercooked. This will help keep the pasta from falling apart in the salad. Drain and rinse with cold water until pasta is completely cool, then drain well again.
Prepare the vinaigrette
While the pasta is cooling, mix all the Basic Vinaigrette ingredients in a bowl until combined.
Mix in vegetables
Place cooled pasta into a large bowl and add the vegetables and herbs. Gently toss.
Add dressing and mix well
Drizzle Basic Vinaigrette over the pasta salad and gently toss again. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Meal Prepping Tip
Transfer the salad to airtight containers and store it in the refrigerator until ready to use. Follow my Meal Prep Salad tutorial to get the best containers and more in-depth tips.
Pasta Salad Ingredient Swaps
Probably my favorite part about this healthy pasta salad lunch is how much you can customize it to your taste preferences! Here are a few swaps I suggest if you want to try them:
- Swap olive oil with avocado oil.
- Swap red wine vinegar with the vinegar of your choice.
- Use your preferred pasta type, or use gluten-free.
- Cannellini beans can be swapped with another kind of legume (black beans, kidney beans or chickpeas are great swaps).
- Add the veggies of your choice! Radishes or cucumbers are great additions.
- Feel free to add nuts or seeds for an extra crunch.
I have a hard time eating the same thing over again, even when it’s as delicious as this vegan pasta salad. So you’ll find mine with a slight variation every time I make it, and that’s fine.
Storage Tips
Toss the salad well in the dressing as this helps it keep well in the fridge. Store in individual serving airtight containers to grab when you need to quickly. If you like your greens extra fresh, then wait to add those until you’re ready to eat, so they don’t wilt.
More Healthy Pasta Recipes
If you don’t use leftovers to fuel your lunch, you need to make or buy them every day. I love batching easy recipes for lunch that we can grab throughout the week. Here are a few more pasta recipes:
- Vegetable Noodle Soup: Instead of suffering through your next cold, turn to my vegetable noodle soup for the best home remedy recipe to kick that cold to the curb.
- Vegetarian Noodle Salad– toss together and enjoy throughout the week.
Take the guesswork out of lunch when you double or triple a recipe, then save it for the days ahead. The vegan pasta salad below is filling and doesn’t even need to be heated up to enjoy.
Healthy Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- ½ cup farfalle pasta
- ¾ cup arugula pre-washed
- ¾ cup cannellini beans canned, drained and well rinsed
- ¼ red bell pepper diced
- 1 green onion diced
- 2 tbsp black olives sliced
- 2 tbsp sun-dried tomatoes in oil
- 2 tbsp fresh basil, mint and parsley chopped
- ¼ cup vegan feta optional
Basic Vinaigrette
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- ½ garlic clove finely minced
- ⅛ tsp sea salt
- ⅛ tsp ground black pepper
Instructions
- Follow cooking directions on pasta package for "al dente" (which allows pasta to remain slightly undercooked). This will help keep the pasta from falling apart in the salad. Drain and rinse with cold water until pasta is completely cool.
- While the pasta is cooling, mix all the Basic Vinaigrette ingredients together in a bowl until combined.
- Place cooled pasta into a large bowl and add the vegetables and herbs. Gently toss. Drizzle Basic Vinaigrette over the pasta salad and gently toss again. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
- If meal prepping, transfer the salad to airtight containers and store in refrigerator until ready to use.
Notes
- Use the pasta of your choice: bowtie, fusilli, shells, etc.
- Arugula has a strong, peppery flavor. You can swap with kale or spinach.
- Cannellini beans can be swapped with the legume of your choice.
- I love using basil, oregano and chives yet you can any fresh herbs.
Nutrition
Top Healthy Pasta Salad Questions
It doesn’t have to be! Ditch the store-made pasta salads made with additives and processed ingredients. Home make one instead with loads of fresh greens and a light, oil-based dressing.
This pasta salad should stay fresh in the fridge for up to five days since it is oil-based. Dairy or mayo-based salads will keep fewer days.
Choose a pasta salad that is oil-based (using healthy fats like olive oil or avocado oil) instead of dairy or mayonnaise-based, has plenty of fresh veggies and leafy greens and a good protein source like beans or tofu. This recipe’s got it all!
Oh my gosh… best pasta salad ever! So delicousness.
Hey Susan! Woo hooo, I’ll gladly accept the title of best pasta salad ever!
This salad turned very tasty. I wanted to eat the whole thing but my husband claimed it lol
Hi Diane! It really stinks when you have to share it right?! lol
Very good pasta salad.
Thanks Theresa!
Great recipe as a side or light lunch. Even the kids love it!
You’re so right, Robin! Super versatile as either a lunch or side dish!
Next time I will make substitutions to see if I like it better: spinach instead of arugula, fresh tomatoes for the sun dried. I like sun dried tomatoes, just not in this recipe.
Hi Allison! You can definitely make some substitutions to make this one work for you.
All the ingredients are well combined and the result is a burst of flavors. I did use cherry tomatoes instead of sun-dried tomatoes and I swapped parsley for chives, the result was super tasty and very colorful and tasteful. I’ll make this salad regularly and in the summer or hot weather will be the number one dish I’ll make and bring to picnics .
One of my favorites! Very filling and satisfying salad. I made lots of adjustments. I used bowtie pasta, spinach, chickpeas, red pepper, chives, diced tomatoes (because didn’t have sun-dried), artichoke hearts, cilantro, (real feta in hubby’s bowl), and for the dressing I drizzled over oil from the artichoke hearts jar, balsamic vinegar, minced garlic, salt and pepper. Again, I love how adjustable this recipe is (and all the salad recipes are). I’ll be making this again and it’ll probably be slightly different each time. 🙂
I loved how the dressing and herbs in the salad blended to make a fabulous taste. It really made the salad. This may have been one of the easiest salads I have made. What’s lovely, was that I made it early, dressed it and put it into the fridge. When I served it, because of the arugula, it was as crisp and fresh as when I made it. I gave this a 4 because I felt the flavors were not distinct enough. It needed more.
Loved this! I did double the pasta though, just because I thought the ratio seemed off, and I eas glad I did. Easy to make if you have all the ingredients on hand and I definitely probably will!
Too easy to make and the dressing was very good! This was a good way for me to eat beans and the salad as a whole kept me full. I ate it for dinner and didn’t need anything else. I made 2 servings so I could eat this another day!
I make pasta salad every now and then for my family and they love it. This one has a few different ingredients in it and I love the idea of mixing it up and using different foods to switch it up. My family loved this version of Pasta salad. I will definitely make it again because of how simple and easy it is to make.
Pasta Salad
I had this pasta salad for dinner. I seldom make a pasta salad, but I enjoyed it. I used a brown rice pasta in place of wheat. Also fresh tomatoes, no oil, and kalamata olives.
Love this recipe!
I love a great pasta salad for a change up, and this was a treat today!
From my reviews, it appears I just plain love salads, and variety is the name of the “boredom chaser” diet.
I love this salad. With the beans it’s a meal or I’ve left them out and made it as a side dish.
The only ingredient I had to substitute was the Cannellini beans (didn’t have). I used black beans. I wasn’t sure about the combination of mint/ parsley/ Basil but I liked it. Can’t wait to see if chilling overnight will be an enhancement.