Italian Lemon Pasta Salad! If you’re craving a light but satisfying Italian pasta salad with real lemon flavor, this one checks every box: easy, crowd-pleasing, and packed with that homemade taste.
This easy-to-make, healthy Italian Lemon Pasta Salad is the kind of bright, zesty dish that disappears fast. It’s filled with tender pasta, crisp green onions, and baby spinach, all coated in a homemade tangy lemony Italian dressing that tastes fresh, sunny, and seriously flavorful. It’s the perfect pasta salad for picnics, potlucks, barbecues, and weeknight lunches, because it’s effortless to put together.
This easy-to-make Italian Lemon Pasta Salad is filled with pasta, green onions, and baby spinach all coated in a deliciously tangy homemade lemony Italian dressing. Perfect for picnics, potlucks, and every day!
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients.
Hi there, Ameera here!
We devoured this delicious pasta salad; it’s so yummy! Like, the bowl was basically gone before I even realized it. If you love tangy, herby, lemony flavors (and want something that feels special without being complicated), you gotta give this one a try!
It’s the perfect Italian lemon pasta salad when you need a dish that’s refreshing, flavorful, and guaranteed to get compliments.
Tips for Success:
- Flavor Profile: This easy-to-make Italian Lemon Pasta Salad is filled with pasta, green onions, and baby spinach all coated in a deliciously tangy homemade lemony Italian dressing. Perfect for picnics, potlucks, and every day!
- Oil-Free Pasta Salads: Oil-free Pasta Salads tend to really drink up the dressing simply because oil-based pasta salads use oil to coat the pasta creating a barrier where the oil helps prevent the dressing from being overly absorbed by the dressing. With oil-free pasta salads, the dressing is absorbed into the cooked pasta while in the refrigerator. If presenting for guests, picnics, or potlucks, we suggest not dressing the pasta salad until right before serving.
- Maximum Serving Presentation:
- The Day Before or Earlier in the Day:
- Cook the pasta, refrigerate.
- Make the dressing, refrigerate.
- Chop, slice, dice each of the Base Ingredients and store individually in the refrigerator.
- Right before Serving:
- Place the cooked and refrigerated pasta in a colander and rinse with cold water. Use your fingers to gently separate the pasta. Continue rinsing until all the pasta loosened (it tends to stick together). Then drain well to remove any excess water.
- Place all the Base Ingredients into a large bowl, mix well.
- Stir the dressing, if too thick add a tablespoon of water (or vinegar) and stir well. Evaluate the thickness, add a little more, if needed.
- Pour the dressing over the Base Ingredients, mix thoroughly, then serve in a serving bowl.
- The Day Before or Earlier in the Day:
- Pure Maple Syrup: The sweetness of this dish is totally within your control. Start on the low-end and increase as you feel necessary.
- Pasta: We used mini farfalle pasta. Feel free to use your favorite short-cut pasta like elbows, ditalini, small shells, etc.
- Amount of Pasta: We use between 8 to 10 oz. of dry pasta for this pasta salad. Start adding the cooked pasta one cup at a time, reviewing the dressing to pasta ratio to achieve the creaminess desired. Use 8 oz. if you enjoy a very creamy pasta salad. We used 5 cups of cooked pasta in total.
- Gluten Free Pastas in Pasta Salads: If using a gluten free pasta, rinse thoroughly and drain well. Serve immediately. Gluten free pasta tends to seize up in the refrigerator and can become stiff and almost crunchy. We suggest serving immediately after making if using a gluten free pasta for the best results.
- Table Salt: If using table salt, you should use less table salt than the amount listed in the ingredients as sea salt crystals are larger than table salt crystals. Since table salt crystals are very fine, less table salt is required to season a dish. We would suggest starting with about 1/4 to 1/2 the amount of sea salt listed. You can always add more salt but cannot take it away. We recommend using sea salt as it is less refined than table salt.
Leftovers and Freezing:
Leftovers will generally keep 4 days in the refrigerator. Store in a covered air-tight container.
This salad does not freeze well.
Pantry Products:
- Tahini: We used Ziyad Premium Tahini (Sesame Paste). Feel free to use your favorite brand of tahini.
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Kitchen Equipment:
- Large stockpot (for boiling pasta)
If you try this flavorful pasta salad, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us! We would love to hear from you.
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Italian Lemon Pasta Salad
- Prep Time: 10 Minutes
- Cook Time: 8-10 Minutes
- Total Time: 20 Minutes
- Yield: 5 ½ Cups 1x
- Category: Lunch, Salad
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian Inspired
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This easy-to-make, healthy Italian Lemon Pasta Salad is the kind of bright, zesty dish that disappears fast.
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients
- 8 to 10 oz. dry mini farfalle pasta (or pasta of choice) *
- ½ to ¾ cup green onions, sliced
- 1 cup chopped fresh baby spinach
Dressing Ingredients
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons tahini *
- 2 teaspoons pure maple syrup (+/-) *
- 1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest (+/-)
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano (+/-)
- ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning mix (+/-)
- Pinch to 1 teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
Instructions
- Cook the pasta according to package directions, rinse well with cool tap water until cold, shake off excess water, set aside to drain.
- Place all the Dressing Ingredients into a small bowl, whisk until smooth and emulsified, set aside.
- Place all the Salad Ingredients and cooked pasta into a large bowl, mix well to combine, then pour the Dressing over top, mix well. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Please reference the blog post for Tips for Success, Pantry Items Used, Storage and Freezing, and Kitchen Products Used.
Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Servings: makes 5 ½ cups
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