Ditalini Pasta Salad Recipe
This Ditalini Pasta Salad recipe is made with fresh vegetables, herbs, and a simple homemade lemon vinaigrette dressing! Great for parties, BBQs, or potlucks – this is one crowd-pleaser recipe everyone will love.
This is one side dish that will be gone before you know it: crunchy veggies, fun ditalini pasta, and a bright and fresh red wine vinaigrette dressing. Serve this as a side dish, appetizer, or just enjoy it as a light lunch in the summer. A great way to use fresh garden produce and pantry staple ingredients!
This ditalini pasta salad is amazing as a side dish, to bring to a potluck, or just for lunch. The secret to amazing pasta salads is making homemade dressing – it takes about 5 minutes but the flavor blows the bottled stuff out of the water!
I made it a day in advance, which gave the pasta salad just enough time for the flavors to marinate before serving. I make a huge batch of pasta salad every other week for our lunches, and I have a feeling this will be my new Go-To recipe for Sunday night meal prep.
This Ditalini Pasta Salad is:
- Refreshing
- Tangy
- Bursting with flavor
- Hearty
- Loaded with fresh vegetables
- Vegan , vegetarian, and dairy free
- A HUGE crowd-pleaser
- Great for BBQs, parties, or potlucks
The Best Pasta Salad Dressing
What makes this pasta salad different and so life altering from the rest? The dressing! Its a homemade red wine vinaigrette. I’ve always used bottled dressings in the past but wanted to make a homemade dressing pasta salad.
I didn’t have any vinaigrette dressing on hand so I made one from scratch. It makes ALL the difference in the world. The fresh garlic, the vinegar, the herbs, and good olive oil… I can’t believe that I hadn’t thought of making my own dressing sooner!
What’s In This Ditalini Salad Recipe?
Be sure to visit the recipe card below for full ingredient amounts and recipe instructions!
- Ditalini Pasta – ditalini is a fun short tube-like shape that’s fantastic for soups and salads!
- Spinach
- Onion
- No Salt Added / Low Sodium Chickpeas: one of my favorite pantry staple ingredients! You can use canned chickpeas (I’d highly recommend a low sodium or no salt version), or you can make your own chickpeas from scratch in the Instant Pot.
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Dill
- Mint
- Lemon
- Sea salt and black pepper
How to Make this Ditalini Pasta Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette
- In a large pot, boil water and cook the ditalini according to package directions. Drain and cool, and place in a large mixing bowl.
- In the bowl add the spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas, and kalamata olives. Add the parsley, olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper.
- Toss dressing and pasta together, until well combined.
- Chill pasta salad in refrigerator (overnight if possible to let the flavors set). Before serving adding a tablespoon each of red wine vinegar and olive oil, and toss.
More Fresh Vegetarian Pasta Salads You’ll Love!
Lemon Orzo Salad Recipe (Vegetarian, High Fiber, Vegan)
Zesty Italian Pasta Salad Recipe (Vegetarian, Gluten Free)
Soba Noodle Salad with Miso Dressing Recipe (Vegan, Vegetarian)
Vegan Pasta Salad with Mayo Recipe (Egg & Dairy Free)
Ramen Noodle Salad Recipe with Coleslaw
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Ditalini Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce box ditalini pasta
- 4 cups fresh spinach chopped
- 1 13.5-ounce can chickpeas
- 1 cup cucumbers sliced
- 1 cup tomatoes diced (I used roma, but you can use beefsteak tomatoes, or 1 cup diced cherry tomatoes)
- 1/4 cup kalamata olives sliced
- 1/2 cup fresh parsley chopped
Homemade Red Wine Vinaigrette Dressing
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 3 cloves garlic pressed
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper
Instructions
- In the bowl add the spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas, and kalamata olives. Add the parsley, olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper.
- Toss dressing and pasta together, until well combined.
- Chill pasta salad in refrigerator (overnight if possible to let the flavors set). Before serving adding a tablespoon each of red wine vinegar and olive oil, and toss.
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Nutrition
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A crowd pleaser
Thanks for the clarification on the tomatoes! I ended up using cherry tomatoes. This recipe is delicious! I only had half a box of ditalini, but for my personal taste, that was enough pasta. Everything else was measured according to directions and for me, the ratio of pasta (8 oz.) to everything else was good. I might even add more of the veggies next time. I used the full amount of dressing and it was all absorbed. I could drink that stuff, lol! Glad I found this recipe. I’ll make it again. Thanks!
I’m so glad to hear that Donna – yes, that dressing goes on just about every salad we make 🙂 Thanks so much for letting me know how much you liked it! – Kelly
Hi. The directions say to mix together “spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas, and kalamata olives.” However, I don’t see the kind of tomatoes in the ingredients. What kind of tomatoes did you use? How much? This salad looks delicious! Can’t wait to make it. Thanks for clarification on the tomatoes.
Hi Donna,
Thanks for letting me know – I added the kind of tomatoes in the recipe! I used Roma tomatoes which I love the flavor of, but you can use beefsteak tomatoes or which even ones are in season. In the winter I like to use cherry or grape tomatoes in my recipes as they are usually sweeter. About 1 cup total of diced tomatoes will do the trick! Let me know how it turns out 🙂
Love the little pastas in this salad plus the dressing is versatile and can be used on plenty of other recipes. Yum
Thank you so much, so glad you enjoyed it!