20 Minute Summer Pasta Salad

This 20 minute Summer pasta salad is bursting with summer time flavors from the homemade basil dressing! Best part: it only takes 20 minutes to make. Literally…I timed it!

Is your garden producing more basil and cherry tomatoes than you can handle? Not sure what to do with them all? Well, you could preserve the tomatoes, and dry out the basil…OR you could make this delicious and very easy 20 minute summer pasta salad recipe!

It’s true, I timed it. It took me even a little less than 20 minutes to make. Maybe 18 or 19 minutes. But I’ll round it up to 20.

It took a while, but my cherry tomatoes are finally turning red!! As if I wasn’t waiting long enough for them to turn, now they are all turning red on me, and its a little overwhelming!

My basil, holy moly…I don’t know what’s going on with my basil plant, but i’m liking it! Its growing like crazy!!

If you didn’t know this…herb plants like to be picked. You never want them to produce blossoms. One year, my basil plant produced blossoms, and it was just never the same after that. So I learnt my lesson, to always pick at the plant whether you are using the basil leaves or not.

If it wasn’t for the homemade basil dressing, this pasta salad would be nothing but bland and boring.

This basil dressing amazing. It’s simple to make, using simple ingredients and is literally better than any store bought dressing.

Ive been on a kick lately with making my own dressings for certain recipes. Why buy a bottle of dressing at the store, which is most likely loaded unnecessary ingredients, when you can simply make your own dressings, with ingredients you most likely already have at home.

Look at that! The color! I mean, it is basil dressing…basil is green sooooo makes sense!! No color additives here!

Enjoy!

Make sure to check out my recipe for turkey bacon ranch pasta salad! https://thehungrylyoness.com/recipe/turkey-bacon-ranch-pasta-salad/

20 Minute Summer Pasta Salad

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Servings: 4 People

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

Basil Dressing

• 1 Cup Fresh Basil Leaves
• 2-3 Cloves Garlic, skin peeled off
• 3/4 Cups olive oil
• 1/4 Cup Fresh Lemon Juice
• 1 TSP White Sugar
• 3/4 TSP Salt
• 1/2 TSP Red Pepper Flakes

Pasta Salad

• 12 OZ. Farfalle Pasta
• 2 Cups Cherry Tomatoes (halved)
• 1/2 Cup Thin Sliced Red Onion
• 8 OZ. Mozzarella Balls
• 1 Cup Fresh Basil Leaves, thinly sliced

Method

 

Basil Dressing

1. In a food blender, or blender add 1 cup of basil, cloves of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, sugar, salt and red pepper flakes. Puree until nice and smooth, and no big chunks of anything. Set aside.

Pasta Salad

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. In meantime, cut tomatoes in half, slice your onion, thinly slice basil leaves and drain mozzarella balls.
3. When pasta is done cooking, drain and dump in a strainer. Rinse under cold water for about 1 minute and allow to drain.
4. Add pasta to large mixing bowl, add your mozzarella balls, tomatoes, onions and basil on top.
5. Drizzle dressing all over pasta and mix well until everything is combined and evenly distributed.
6. You can either serve right away, or let chill in fridge for a bit before serving.
7. Either way its delicious! Enjoy!!

Notes

This pasta salad tastes even better when it sits and chills in fridge overnight or even a day! SO it makes for great left overs!!

 

Recipe Inspiration: https://bakerbynature.com/garlicky-tomato-basil-pasta-salad/