Spinach Pesto Pasta Salad with White Beans, Mozzarella and Tomatoes
Spinach pesto pasta salad is perfect for casual summer dinners. It's made with deliciously healthy spinach basil pesto, white beans, tomatoes, mozzarella and olives.
This recipe was originally published June 30th, 2020 and updated July 26, 2021.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10
- Total Time: 30
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: pasta
- Method: Boil
- Cuisine: Italian American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 1 batch spinach pesto (add 2 extra tablespoons olive oil so the pesto isn’t too thick)
- 8 ounces dried pasta (use your favorite short noodle, like cavatappi, rotini, fusilli, shells, macaroni, etc)
- 1 can white beans, drained
- 8 ounces cherry tomatoes (whole or halved)
- 8 ounce small mozzarella balls (ciliegine or perline)
- One 6-ounce can black olives, drained (or 1 cup pitted kalamata olives)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- A squeeze of fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- First, make a batch of spinach pesto. For cold pasta salad, the pesto shouldn’t be too thick, so add 2 extra tablespoons of olive oil.
- Cook the pasta in generously salted water for the amount of time instructed on the box, being careful not to overcook. The pasta shouldn’t be too soft!
- Before draining the cooked pasta, reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water.
- Drain then rinse the cooked pasta in cold water to cool it off. Leave a little bit of water clinging to the noodles; the water will help the pesto blend in better.
- In a large bowl, mix the pesto with 2 tablespoons of the reserved pasta water to thin out the pesto. Add the cooked pasta, and toss well to coat.
- Gently mix in the white beans, tomatoes, mozzarella balls and olives.
- Season generously with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon.
Notes
I prefer to eat pasta salad at room temperature, because the flavors are more pronounced and the texture is better. If you eat the salad cold, straight from the refrigerator, you’ll probably need to add more salt and lemon juice to perk up the flavor.
