Pasta salad full of Mediterranean flavors
Pasta salad with homemade tomato pesto, spinach, roasted mini bell pepper, feta and tasty Greek olives. A delicious lunch or picnic where vegetables also play an important role...
Servings: 4 persons
Equipment
- cooking pot
- cutter / mixer
- wok / deep pan
- grill pan
Ingredients
- 400 gr pasta I chose the Mafalda pasta, but it could just as well be served with penne or rigatoni...
- 200 gr spinach fresh leaves
- 6 mini peppers You usually have them in red, yellow, orange. If you can't find them, use half of regular sweet peppers and cut them into coarse pieces.
- 200 gr Kalamata olives I am a fan of Greek Kalamata olives but feel free to use the kind you like.
- 130 gr feta
- 2 tbl spoon olive oil
- pepper and salt
Tomato pesto
- 300 gr cherry tomatoes
- 4 dried tomatoes
- 50 gr pine nuts
- 2 tspoon thyme
- 2 tbl spoon tomato paste concentrate
- 3 tblspoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
Instructions
- Put a pot with water, a little salt and a little olive oil on the heat and follow the instructions on the pasta packaging. Boil the pasta, strain through a sieve and let it cool.
Then make the tapenade
- Rinse the cherry tomatoes, halve them and put them in the cutter.Cut the dried tomatoes into pieces and add them together with the pine nuts, thyme, tomato puree, garlic and olive oil in the cutter.Mix until there are only small pieces left. Season with salt and pepper.
Vegetables with the pasta
- Place the grill pan on the heat and when it is hot enough, place the whole mini peppers on top. Turn them after 5 minutes. Then let this side cook for 5 minutes and turn off the heat. Let them cool. If you don't have a grill pan, you can also bake them in the pan or oven.
- Rinse the spinach. Heat in a wok or deep pan the 2 tbsp olive oil and add the fresh spinach leaves. Stir well, the leaves will immediately become limp. Turn off the heat and let it cool.
- Take a large mixing bowl, add the cooled pasta along with the tomato pesto, spinach, feta (crushed between your fingers) and olives (drained). Mix well and season with salt and pepper (if necessary)
- Finally, halve the grilled peppers and arrange them on top of the pasta. If you like Parmesan cheese, you can grate some on top (but not much...we mainly work with feta )
Notes
The roasted peppers, Greek olives and the homemade tomato pesto with thyme provide a big flavor bomb. You will immediately be happy with all those Mediterranean flavors and what a colorful plate! Summer at its best!
