Veggie Pasta Salad
How to make salad dressing with tahini?
There are endless versions of pasta salads to explore these days. They all involve pasta, in whatever shape preferred, and an assortment of chopped vegetables. What sets each apart is the dressing that pulls all the flavors together. Our Veggie Pasta Salad differs from the conventional pasta salad because of its tangy tahini lemon dressing.
Although most pasta salad recipes include either mayonnaise or some other cream-based dressing, our Veggie Pasta salad will surprise your taste buds without them. The tahini lemon dressing is simple to prepare. We use Once Again Tahini, with lemon and a dash of maple syrup, to balance the sweetness.
There are two ways to prepare this dressing. If you have a glass jar with a tight lid, you can add all ingredients to the jar and mix vigorously until well blended. If you prefer a creamier style of dressing, we recommend using an immersion blender. Add all ingredients to a deep medium-sized bowl and blend until creamy.
The recipe below will yield just enough dressing for the veggie pasta salad, but we recommend making a little extra to save for the next day. You can use this dressing in salads, a veggie dip, or as a topping for a quinoa bowl. It accompanies shrimp, chicken, and even tofu to accentuate their flavor, adding a velvety accent to the dish.
The actual choice of noodles and which vegetables to include in the pasta salad is secondary to how amazing this dressing is. Therefore, feel free to substitute any of the other ingredients with whatever you have on hand. Consider also another version we tried: add feta cheese crumbles, black olives, and artichokes for a Greek Pasta salad twist to this recipe. Try your unique version and share it with us in the comments below.
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Category
Dinner, Salad
Author:
Carolina Jantac, MS, RD, LD
A salad dressing you can use for just about anything! A mixture of tangy and earthy, great for pasta salads.
Ingredients
- 4 cups of cooked whole wheat pasta
- 1 cup of carrot sticks
- 1 cup of sliced cherry tomatoes
- ½ cup of chopped cucumber
- 1 small red onion chopped
-
¼ cup Once Again Tahini
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup warm water
- 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons of maple syrup
- 1 garlic clove minced
- Salt and pepper to taste
Dressing
Directions
- In a small container with a lid, like a jar, mix all the salad dressing ingredients and shake vigorously until well blended.
- Here’s a tip: Use a small bowl instead and an immersion blender for faster and creamier results.
- In a large serving bowl, mix the pasta with all veggies and slowly pour
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