This Tortellini Pasta Salad is the perfect side dish or appetizer for your next party. Serve it cold for a refreshing and delicious side.
Make-ahead
Minimal prep
You’ll Learn: How to compose a balanced pasta salad with texture and crunch
Worth It: Fast and flexible
Bonus: Great for meal prep and make-ahead
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Easy summer eating – This tortellini pasta salad is perfect for summer! The flavors feel fresh and bright to balance out the creamy tortellini, plus it takes almost no prep time to throw together.
- Make ahead dish – I love making pasta salad because you can throw it together earlier in the day and allow all the flavors to come together. Then, it’s ready to serve whenever you want it!
- Perfect for parties – You can make a huge batch of this pasta salad to serve as many people as you need! It’s easy to double or even triple this tortellini pasta salad recipe for all parties and potlucks.
- Great for meal prep – prepare this early in the week and then enjoy for quick lunches all week long.
Serving suggestions
Make this tortellini pasta salad for your next backyard BBQ. You can serve it alongside some surf and turf skewers, turkey burgers, or some grilled chicken thighs. For another salad option, you could make a summer corn salad.
For dessert, make this peach blueberry crisp, or try this mixed berry cobbler. These s’mores cookies are another one of my favorites for a summer dessert.
Ingredients
- Cheese tortellini – I love using cheese tortellini to let the other flavors shine in this recipe, but you can use spinach tortellini instead
- Cucumbers – the crunch of the cucumbers in this pasta salad is so tasty
- Sun dried tomatoes – the flavor of sun dried tomatoes is the perfect complement to this salad
- Parmesan cheese – I highly recommend freshly shaving the parmesan yourself, but store bought also works
- Genoa salami – genoa adds a bright and light flavor to the pasta salad
- Olives – I like using green olives for their bigger flavor, but you can use black olives if you prefer
- Olive oil – I used extra virgin olive oil for this dressing, but you can use a neutral oil if you do not have extra virgin
- Red wine vinegar – the vinegar provides a bit of acidity to the pasta salad to really brighten everything up
- Italian seasoning – if you do not have Italian seasoning, you can use a combination of dried herbs like oregano, rosemary, parsley, basil, with a bit of garlic powder and salt to taste
Ingredient Substitutions
This tortellini salad is totally customizable. You can add more veggies, like diced bell peppers or red onion. Instead of sun dried tomatoes, you could do roasted cherry tomatoes.
You could add some mozzarella pearls to your salad if you would like. Fresh mozzarella balls incorporate a bit more creaminess to your pasta salad. Or you could opt for a Greek spin and use feta cheese. Add some basil pesto for even more herby flavor.
To keep things even quicker, you could use Italian dressing instead of the oil, vinegar and spices.
How to make
Step 1: Make the Pasta and Dressing
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook tortellini according to package instructions. Drain and rinse in cold water to bring to room temperature (Image 1).
Whisk together olive oil, vinegar and a teaspoon of Italian seasoning in a small bowl (Image 2).
Step 2: Combine all ingredients
Pour cooked and cooled tortellini into a large bowl along with the cucumbers, sun dried tomatoes, shaved parmesan cheese, and olives (Image 3).
Pour dressing over and toss everything to combine (Image 4).
Serve immediately at room temperature or allow to chill in the refrigerator and serve chilled. Garnish with fresh basil.
Storage
This pasta salad is best eaten within the first day of making it, but you can store leftover tortellini pasta salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
Check out these other Pasta Salad Recipes
You can find the full recipe below. If you make this recipe, please rate and review it in the comments, or share it with me on Instagram!
You can find the full recipe below. If you make this recipe, please rate and review it in the comments, or share it with me on Instagram!
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Recipe
Tortellini Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 9-12 oz cheese tortellini
- 1 cup cucumbers diced
- ½ cup sun dried tomatoes julienne sliced
- ½ cup parmesan cheese shaved
- 3 oz genoa salami cut into bite sized pieces
- ¼ cup olives chopped
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp italian seasoning
Instructions
- Cook tortellini according to package instructions – rinse in cool water to bring to room temperature.
- Whisk together olive oil, vinegar and Italian seasoning.
- Pour cooked and cooled tortellini into a large mixing bowl along with the cucumbers, sun dried tomatoes, shaved parmesan cheese, and olives. Pour dressing over and toss everything to combine.
- Serve immediately at room temperature or allow to chill in the refrigerator and serve chilled.
Nutrition Information
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
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