Summer is coming soon, and we certainly feel the heat here in North Carolina! Our family loves my husband's bow tie summer pasta salad, so we decided to make it this weekend along with our kids' favorite summertime food: hot dogs.
The cool part about this meal is that it can be served alone, as a vegetarian meal, or with your favorite protein that you like to throw on the grill. We have it with hot dogs, but it also goes great with grilled salmon, burgers, grilled eggplant, kabobs, or BBQ chicken. You can also get pretty creative with the veggies you include in the meal, or choose to go with what's in season.
This pasta salad is so yummy that we end up munching on it for days. A whole box of pasta goes a long way, so we almost always have leftovers. Most of the time it starts out as a side dish for dinner, and then we have it for lunch the next day.
We love using bow tie pasta for this dish, but pinwheels or rotini work great as well.
Bow Tie Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 1 12 oz box bow tie pasta
- 1 pint grape tomatoes (halved)
- 1 large yellow pepper (diced)
- 1 cucumber (cut however you like)
- 6 T olive oil
- 3 T red wine vinegar
- 10-12 fresh basil leaves (chopped or ripped apart)
- 1 1/2 t fresh dill (chopped, or 1/2 t dried dill)
- 1 t salt
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to instructions on box. Drain pasta and rinse with cold water.
- Meanwhile, combine veggies into a large bowl. Add olive oil, red wine vinegar, basil, dill and salt, and mix together.
Notes
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. While we are not certified nutritionists, we work with a WordPress-integrated nutrition API to calculate our recipes' ingredient values.
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Thank you so much! Glad you are enjoying the site! -Marcie