Cabbage Pasta Salad

Green Cabbage Pasta in an octagon shaped bowl on a white marble background.

This herbaceous Cabbage Pasta Salad is loaded with fresh cucumber, chickpeas, feta, dill, green onion and of course tons of hearty cabbage for a healthy side dish. This pasta salad has a wonderfully bright and herbaceous dressing which makes it a fantastic easy lunch and crowdpleasing side.

Course Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 10

Resting Time 2

Total Time 2 25

Servings people

Calories 276kcal

Author Mara

Ingredients

10-12 ounces pasta
3 cups green cabbage chopped
1 english cucumber
1 bunch green onion
1 15 ounce can of chickpeas
8 ounces feta
salt & pepper to taste
.5 ounce fresh dill

Dressing

whites of green onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
handful chives
handful basil
⅓ cup olive oil
⅓ cup mayo
1 lemon juice and zest
⅓ cup walnuts
salt, pepper and chili flakes to taste

Instructions

Cook the pasta: Bring a pot of water to a boil. Salt heavily. Follow package directions to cook pasta al dente. Drain: pasta and rinse in cold water. Set aside until cool.
While the pasta is cooking/cooling, wash and rinse vegetables, chickpeas and herbs. Finely chop cabbage, slice and salt cucumbers, chop green onions (dividing the white and green parts), and chop the dill.
Add all the dressing ingredients to a small food processor or blender. Blend until smooth.
Toss all ingredients together in a large serving bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Toss again before serving. Taste and season as needed and serve.

Notes

Season the pasta water well. The water should be salty to impart flavor on the pasta plus keep it from sticking together.

Don’t overcook the pasta. Use the package directions of the pasta you choose as a guide and cook al dente. When done, drain the pasta and move onto our next tip.

Rinse the cooked pasta under cold water before tossing with the salad dressing. If you’ve ever made pasta salad that turned sticky, not rinsing the pasta before tossing with the dressing could be the reason. The cooked pasta is coated in starches. By removing the starches, the salad won’t turn sticky or clump as much. Rinsing the pasta will also keep the pasta from continuing to cook.

Check the seasoning!: The flavor of pasta salad changes when cold. Make sure to toss the pasta salad after refrigerating to evenly redistribute, taste and re-season as needed before serving.

Nutritional information for this recipe is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. Please calculate your own nutritional information if you want it exact to what you make and use my calculations as a guide only.

Nutrition