Vegan Pasta Salad 🌶 Creamy and Healthy 🌶 Easy and Quick

This Creamy Vegan Pasta Salad is perfect as a one-bowl meal for lunch, summer picnics and barbecues.

This salad is here to prove you can have healthy and tasty in no time, with very few ingredients and basic cooking skills.

Budget-friendly too.🌶

Ingredients

Pasta and Veggies

🌶Pasta: any shorter type of pasta will do. I chose to 100% green peas flour fusilli as I am experimenting with these vegetable flours to see how they respond when used cold.

One pattern I have already noticed is that the dry varieties perform better cold than the fresh ones. The last tend to get grainier.

🌶 Tomatoes: any kind really. Just make sure is ripe as it will add to the creaminess too. I have used cherry and better boy. Roma would be great too.

🌶 Yellow Bell Pepper: as I am adding them raw I prefer the sweeter varieties (yellow and orange). But it’s totally fine with red or green too, matter of personal taste.

I used to slice them using a mandolin. However, a potato peeler proved to be even better. It’s what I used this time.

🌶Green peas: you can use canned or boil yours al dente; I use frozen when I make any type of salad as I like the subtle crunchiness they add. I soak them in water before starting to prep and they are ready by the time I need them.

🌶Olives: I use greens over black here as I find they are less overpowering with the sauce. For the same reason I don’t use capers in this recipe.

🌶Onions: again here, experimenting with the ingredients I found that the sweeter lighter taste of the small pickled onions work better with our sauce.

🌶Cucumber: the pictures don’t do any justice to how cute is the cucumber decoration. Carrots and tomatoes are other nice options. Drain the tomatoes if not serving immediately.

Sauce

🌶Oat cream: you can use the one from store but you’d be missing on an excellent excuse to get acquaintance with my crazy easy versatile and cheap 2 ingredient Vegan Oat Cream.

🌶 Soy sauce: I used light, that is why I added a pinch of salt too. Always add the sauce first and try to check if salt is needed at all.

I have also used vegan (the no anchovies kind) Worcestershire sauce. If that is your choice just use as you would a non light (so, saltier) soy sauce.

🌶 Apple cider vinegar: because of the soy sauce I recommend apple or white vinegar; rice would work too. Just not red wine.

🌶 Salt: I use whole salt as much as possible.

🌶Black pepper: when not cooked I prefer black pepper than chilly, but feel free to swap.

How to Make Creamy Vegan Pasta Salad

🌶Bring a pot of salted water to boil an cook your pasta al dente (2-3 minutes less than instructed); rinse the cooked pasta with cold water until cool.

🌶 If using frozen peas, soak them in room-temperature water. Change this water when your prepping is half-way.

🌶 Dice the tomatoes and place in a sieve to drain.

🌶 Proceed to slice the bell pepper and cucumber (both as thin as possible), onions (halves) and olives (circles).

🌶 Mix oat cream, vinegar, pepper and soy sauce. Taste and check for salt.

🌶 Decorate a glass bowl with the cucumber slices.

🌶Mix all the remaining veggies in a large bowl. Add salt if you prefer (I didn’t). Add the pasta and mix again.

🌶 Add all the sauce and mix carefully. Ready to go to the cucumber decorated bowl.

Serving

Hope by now you are convinced of how easy and budget-friendly this Creamy Vegan Pasta Salad recipe is. But what you won’t know until you try it is how classy this simple sauce can be. Specially if you make our Oat Cream. The touch of crunchiness in the salad is also a nice surprise.

Feel like some more pasta salad recipes? Check out our Vegan Fall Pasta Salad and Italian Vegan Pasta Salad.

If these recipes are not enough to convince you to give legume pastas a try, don’t take my word for it. Here is what NPR.org has to say: “Legume pastas are healthier than brown rice, corn or blended gluten-free pastas, they are higher in protein and fiber.”

Creamy Vegan Pasta Salad 🌶Gluten-Free

Recipe by Carol MarsolaCourse: Pasta, SaladsCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy, Fast

Servings

2

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

10

minutes

Method

Stovetop

Diet

Vegan

Total time

20

minutes

Healthy pasta salad, easy and cheap, with a surprising dressing and refreshing crunchiness. Super fast🌶

Ingredients

• 8 oz (225g) gluten-free pasta (penne, fusilli, shells, etc)

• 2 cups ripe tomatoes

• 1 1/2 cups yellow bell pepper

• 1/2 cup cucumber (enough for my bowl)

• 1/2 cup green olives

• 1/2 cup green peas

• 1/2 cup pickled baby onions

• 6 tablespoons oat cream

• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

• salt and pepper

Directions

• Cook the Pasta: bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the pasta and cook 2-3 minutes less than those of the package instructions.
  When finished cooking, rinse the pasta with cold water until is completely cooled.
• Prep the Veggies: soak the frozen peas in water; change at least once after 10 minutes.
  Dice the tomatoes and place in a sieve to loose the excess water until you need them.
  Proceed slicing the bell pepper as thin as possible. I used a potato peel but a knife or mandolin would work too.
  Slice the cucumber in thin circles, the baby onions in halves and the pitted olives in small circles.
• Assemble and serve: decorate a glass bow with the cucumber.
  Mix all the other veggies in a large bowl, add salt if you wish to.
  Add the cooked pasta and the sauce and mix carefully. You might want to use a spatula here.
  Just place everything into your cucumber decorated bowl and it is ready to serve.
• Make the sauce: add the oat cream, soy sauce, vinegar and black pepper. Mix (no whisking necessary) and check if salt is needed.

Notes

• Serving: you can top with avocado, crispy tofu or tempeh, for an even more balanced meal. Keep them as toppings, don’t mix them or they will get mushy.
• Swaps: soy sauce for Worcestershire sauce; apple vinegar for white wine vinegar; 100% green peas flour pasta for any kind of short pasta; yellow bell pepper for orange or red; decorative cucumber for carrot (the potato peel is useful again) or sliced and drained tomatoes and the oat cream for store-bought oat cream (it will be runnier).
• Salad can be kept in fridge for a couple of days, in a closed container. Depending on how grainy your pasta of choice is. The peas flour dry pasta was ok for a couple of days. The fresh version lasts much less.

With gratitude,

Carol🌶