I must admit that I love pasta and I try to test different recipes, so whenever I go to a restaurant I usually order pasta because I know I can’t go wrong with it, it’s a safe meal.
I don’t eat that much cold pasta, but when the temperatures are high all you’re searching is for fast and fresh meals. So a combination of basil and a spinach pesto with mozzarella, olives, and cherry tomatoes is the perfect go-to.
What I love about pasta Fredda or pasta salads is that you can boil your pasta in advance ( because it needs to be cold) and then add whatever ingredients you have in your fridge. This is why this recipe will take you little time to make and with just a few steps you can have a healthy meal at each time of the day.
If you want to see a step-by-step video of this, you can find it on my Instagram page.
Healthy and fresh salad – pesto pasta salad
Ingredients
- 300 g pasta
- 15 g fresh basil
- 40 g spinach
- 20 g pine nuts
- 3 cloves garlic
- ½ lemon zest
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 50 g parmesan cheese
- 200 g cherry tomatoes
- 400 g olives
- 150 g mozzarella
Instructions
- Boil 300 g of pasta and let it cool, you could also boil it in advance or the day before.
- For the pesto follow the next steps: in a food processor put the fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic, parmesan cheese, zest lemon, and sauteed spinach.
- Mix everything together and then add olive oil and mix it again until a cream is formed. Add salt and pepper to taste
- Once the pasta is cool all you have to do is to bring all the ingredients together. In a bowl put the pasta, pesto olives, mozzarella, and cherry tomatoes and mix it all together.
