Instead of regular pasta salad, why not take it up a notch with our delicious Pesto Pasta Salad? It’s herby, super easy to make, and customizable! 

THE INGREDIENTS: 

The Pasta Salad: 

Rotini Pasta: Look, we like swirly pasta. The pesto wraps into its coils and makes for a bite where the pesto actually stays on the pasta! Compared to penne or other ridge-less pastas, rotini and similar pastas just hold sauces better. So we recommend using rotini or a similar pasta noodle, such as fusilli. After all, who doesn’t love more dressing in each bite? If you’re used to using a different pasta or have something else in your pantry, still reach for it! That’s what we’d do, too, even if we are partial to rotini.

Of course, this is no dish where you want to get out the spaghetti. We’re looking for shorter, smaller noodles so that this feels more like a side dish instead of a pasta dish. Who wants to twirl their salad on a fork?!…not us. Also, when we measure 1.5 cups of rotini pasta, we mean 1.5 cups of dried pasta. If for whatever reason you have fresh pasta, we’d use 2 ¼ cups. . 

Pesto: Although we have a homemade pesto recipe on our website, we also understand using what you already have or even just getting store-bought. It sure is easy! We believe 6 tablespoons ensures a complete yet not overwhelming dressing of the pasta. Feel free to increase this to your desires of course, especially if you add more vegetables than we did. Our homemade pesto, personally, makes about 9 tablespoons of pesto anyway. With the leftovers, we think it is best to top them on a pizza, dress your salad, spread it on toast or top your fried eggs with it for quite the fancy breakfast. Don’t worry, of course, as the list goes on! Pesto can be used in so many different things we see no harm that you’d have a little left over. 

Cherry Tomatoes: If you’ve been looking at our other recipes, you know we appreciate a good crunch. However, what about a juicy bite! There are more to vegetables than how crunchy they are, after all. We see cherry tomatoes as a must-have vegetable in your pesto pasta salad. However, you know yourself best. Increase, decrease, or get rid of these altogether! In place of cherry tomatoes, you can use fresh diced tomatoes to get the same effect. If you like oil-packed sun dried tomatoes instead, you can also add them to this recipe. Be aware that although they’re a tomato, they actually bring quite a different texture and flavor! 

Olives: A controversial inclusion, indeed. Some of us don’t like olives, but we often get out-voted by the olive lovers. They add a nice, briney flavor unlike regular fresh veggies. Increase, decrease, or get rid of them all together! You know your tastes best. 

Other Possible Add-Ins: Looking to replace olives or cherry tomatoes in this pesto pasta salad recipe? Or perhaps just add more veggies? Well, consider: Cucumbers, Radishes, Carrots, Celery, Bell Pepper, Green Onions Want some non-veggie options? Try out adding some Chickpeas, White Cannellini Beans, or even Sliced Hearts of Palm! 

The Homemade Pesto: 

Basil: Pesto and basil go hand-in-hand. In fact, it is the predominant flavor of our-if not every-pesto recipe. Although we use a mixture of basil and parsley, feel free to use all basil in this pesto recipe. Just replace the parsley with basil 1:1. When we say 1 cup of fresh basil, it is also the same thing as one of those 0.8 ounce containers of basil you can buy at the grocery store. So, if you use those, use the whole thing! 

Parsley: Parsley may not be the most traditional ingredient, but it has found itself in many pesto recipes, including ours! It’s light and fresh. It helps to make a pesto that you can eat in large quantities, instead of just being able to have a little dab before it just feels way too strong. Again, if you’d rather not use parsley, just replace this 1:1 with more basil. This is a great recipe for using up leftover parsley, as those fresh bunches you can buy without any packing at many grocery stores often have more than 1 cup of parsley to them. 

Sunflower Kernels: Well, these aren’t pine nuts, that’s for sure. However, pine nuts are often quite expensive or even hard to find. When we made pesto with pine nuts, we found they didn’t leave any flavor that made them worthy of buying just for one recipe. However, pine nuts do thicken pesto quite well. So, we learned more about sauces, and found other nuts and seeds can thicken up other sauces, such as pesto, just as well. 

If you don’t have sunflower kernels or pine nuts on hand, feel free to reach for just about any nut or seed you have on hand. With that being said, make sure you are using nuts/seeds that are shelled (no shells). Sunflower kernels, for example, are just sunflower seeds with the shell taken off. In addition to that, think of the flavor of each nut. Peanuts will leave a bit of their flavor impact on the pesto, for example. Cashews or almonds, which have a bit lighter of a flavor, will replicate pine nuts a bit more closely. If you don’t mind buying sunflower kernels, just know they also make a wonderful addition to muffins and granolas! 

Salt: We don’t want our pesto to fall flat, do we? A little bit of salt livens everything up without making you desperate to reach for a glass of water. You know your tastes best, so increase or decrease the salt to your own tastes. 

Black Pepper: Black pepper adds a bit of sharpness to our pesto, but the amount is entirely customizable. We recommend not being too heavy handed, as this is not a flavor you want in the forefront-we want the herbs to be the stars! Increase or decrease this black pepper to your own desires, and feel free to use either ground or freshly cracked. We are partial to freshly cracked, but any black pepper works here. 

Garlic Cloves: Pesto was originally made in Italy. What does Italy make you think of? Can we guess you just thought of the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Sincerely, though, you probably also thought about garlic. You’d be spot on with that, as pesto also traditionally is made with garlic cloves crushed right in! We use 2 cloves for a slight, but not strong, garlic flavor in our pesto. Increase or decrease as desired. 

Olive Oil (+ Where Is The Parmesan?): We have two moods: minimize oil as much as possible or dump like a whole cup straight into the pot and get cooking! When we were making this recipe, we really wanted to find the minimum amount of oil for this recipe. We added 1-2 tablespoons at a time until we hit 8 tablespoons, aka a half cup. We really couldn’t get a successful pesto with less than that. Otherwise, it was more like an herb paste instead of a sauce. If you want to reduce the oil, you’ll have to reduce the sunflower kernels. Be aware, then, that you’ll have a smaller amount of pesto than we make here! 

Also, we use sunflower kernels to thicken our pesto and replace the pine nuts. That leaves the question: but why isn’t parmesan thickening this pesto recipe? Personally, we just like our pesto without. We like cheese, we really do, but we’re not of those who think cheese just makes everything better. In our fridge, we really stick to minimal cheeses and don’t frequently have parmesan on hand-and you all can guess how much we like cooking with what we have! As a bonus, if you’re vegan, this recipe is already all adjusted for you! 

KEY INFORMATION: 

For The Pasta Salad: 

Can I Make Pasta Salad In Advance? Yes, you can make pasta salad in advance. Make it a day before serving and there will be plenty of time for the flavors to meld together in the fridge. In fact, it is even yummier when made in advance. 

What Goes With Pesto Pasta Salad? Pesto Pasta Salad is a classic summer side dish. For a main course, focus on burgers, hot dogs, barbeque, or fried fish. More sides that pair well with pesto pasta salad are grilled corn, potato salad, or onion rings. 

For The Pesto: 

Can I Just Add All of the Ingredients at Once and Mix? Nope. If you add all of the liquid at once, the dry ingredients will be suspended in the liquid and not grind as well. Instead, some of the ingredients will just fly around in the liquid. It is better to add the oil slowly, about 2 tablespoons at a time, blending after each addition. This makes sure the other ingredients actually break down when they are processed or ground. 

Can I Use a Food Processor to Make Pesto? Yes, you can! In fact, a food processor is what we go for when making pesto. 

Can I Use a Blender to Make Pesto? Yes, you can! Although a step down from a food processor, a blender still works fine. 

Can I Use a Mortar and Pestle to Make Pesto? Yes, you can! A mortar and pestle does just as good of a job as a food processor, in our opinion. It just takes a touch more strength and a touch more time. 

What Goes With Pesto? We’re glad you asked! Pesto and pasta is a great combination. It doesn’t just have to be for pasta salad. Feel free to replace our macadamia nut pesto with this pesto in our Hawaiian Gnocchi Recipe. Otherwise, You could even mix pesto into some alfredo sauce for an herby twist on that warm, classic pasta dish. Pesto is a great dip for bread, and it is also great on pizza! Feel free to add it to your sandwiches for lunch or on top of your eggs for breakfast, too. 

How Long Does Pesto Last In The Fridge? 3 days is the answer for that! However, if you want long-term storage, you can freeze your pesto instead.