This simple Greek Pasta Salad is just the thing for potlucks and summer cookouts! The textures of crunchy veggies, al dente pasta, and flavors of a savory Greek dressing and feta cheese make this one of the best summer salads around!
Why You’ll Love This Greek Pasta Salad
An easy salad that comms together quickly and everyone enjoys – what’s not to love!
- Ready in minutes – An easy pasta salad sometimes sounds like just the thing for a light lunch or to take along to a gathering. This Greek pasta salad with feta cheese is one that you can throw together in just a few minutes!
- Light and refreshing – It tastes light and refreshing, with the classic tastes of feta, olive, cucumber, and tomato that are the signatures of Greek cooking.
- Make it a meal – You can always bulk it up by adding some grilled chicken or shrimp to make for a satisfying, cool dinner all on its own on hot nights.
Ingredients
These ingredients, and their measurements, are pretty flexible.
- Bowtie pasta – Or another type of pasta with lots of nooks and crannies.
- Tomatoes – Grape tomatoes sliced in half make an easy addition to this salad, but any chopped tomato will work. Garden-fresh ones are always best!
- Cucumbers – We like English or Persian cucumbers best because they don’t need to be peeled first. These add a nice crispy, fresh crunch to the salad!
- Green bell pepper – This adds some crunch as well as flavor to the pasta salad.
- Kalamata olives – Really any kind of olive would work, but the purple jarred Kalamata olives are our favorites.
- Red onion – If your red onions have a really strong flavor, soak them in ice water for 10 minutes first.
- Feta cheese – Go for crumbled feta cheese if you prefer the flavor of feta to be in every bite. Or do larger chunks for a slightly different taste and texture.
- Fresh parsley – Nothing lightens and brightens a salad like some freshly chopped herbs!
- Greek dressing – Made up of olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, a hint of honey, oregano, mint, dill, salt and pepper and of course, garlic, make extra to add more when you are ready to serve.
Variations
There are plenty of ways you can make this Greek pasta salad your own. Here are a few suggestions.
- Pasta – We enjoy bowtie pasta (also known as farfalle) for this salad because it’s size and shape. Rotini or fusilli are also great choices. Even shells, macaroni noodles, or other similarly sized pasta will work.
- Gluten free – And if you are looking to go gluten free, try using quinoa or rice as the starchy base.
- Veggies – Feel free to swap in some different veggies or add additional ones. Add come pepperoncini, bell peppers, zucchini or chickpeas.
How to Make Greek Pasta Salad
Making this pasta salad is as easy as 1, 2, 3!
- Cook pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions for al dente pasta. Drain well and rinse with cold water.
- Chop veggies. While the pasta cooks, chop the vegetables and add them to a large bowl.
- Make dressing. Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake well.
- Combine all ingredients. Add the rinsed and drained pasta to the bowl with the vegetables, olives, feta cheese, and parsley. Pour the dressing over the salad, tossing to coat everything evenly.
Homemade Greek Vinaigrette
We especially love that this salad feels lighter than other pasta salads because it’s made with a homemade vinaigrette instead of mayo. Nothing against mayo, but it’s such a nice way to change things up to bring this type of salad to a cookout!
If you want to make things easy, you can always pick up a bottle of Greek dressing from the store. But when it’s so easy to make at home, I figure I might as well just make it myself.
Storage and Freezing
How to Store Greek Pasta Salad
This Greek pasta salad will really keep in the fridge for 3-5 days in an airtight container. However, the pasta soaks up more of the dressing the longer it sits. It’s really best eaten the day it is made.
Can I Freeze Greek Pasta Salad?
We do not recommend freezing this greek pasta salad. The consistency will be off when it thaws.
More Summer Salads
When it’s hot out and I don’t want to turn on the oven, my go to lunch is a salad. Here are a few of my favorites.
Greek Pasta Salad Recipe
Ingredients
Salad
- 8 ounces bowtie pasta
- 1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes , sliced in half
- 1 seedless cucumber , sliced into half-circles or quarters
- 1 bell pepper , diced
- 1/2 small red onion , diced
- 1/2 cup Kalamata olives , drained
- 2/3 cup feta cheese , crumbed or cubed
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Dressing
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 2 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried dill
- 1 teaspoon dried mint
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions for al dente pasta. Drain well and rinse with cold water.
- While the pasta cooks, chop the vegetables and add them to a large bowl.
- Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake well.
- Add the rinsed and drained pasta to the bowl with the vegetables, olives, feta cheese, and parsley. Pour the dressing over the salad, tossing to coat everything evenly.
- If you've tried this recipe, come back and let us know how it was in the comments or ratings!
Video
Nutrition
This was delicious! I didn’t have red wine vinegar, so I used balsamic. I’m in Italy and have access to local olives, olive oil and fresh veggies. This is definitely a keeper!
My kids absolutely love this salad. I’ve made it probably 10 times. It’s so good!
This was THE BEST Greek pasta salad I have ever made. Tweaked it by dicing the Kalamata olives into tiny pieces, and soaked the red onion to get them sweeter. 10/10 credits to the owner of this recipe, hit the nail on the head with this one!❤️👍🏽
Really yummy, I added sun dried tomatoes and green olives and rotisserie chicken, my 4 boys ate it up! Thanks for sharing!!
The dressing was delicious! Will definitely make again!