Picnic Pasta Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

If you invite me to a potluck or a picnic, chances are 99% that I’m going to bring a pasta salad. Because you can’t really go wrong with a pasta salad, and it requires no actual cooking.  And I don’t actually cook, so there’s that.

This is my copy-cat version of the the delicious Trader Joe’s pasta salad I had a few weeks ago. This pasta is really all about the feta cheese and lemon vinaigrette.  The garbanzo beans gives this enough protein to qualify as a whole meal.  Bonus!

Picnic Pasta Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

1-lb box rotini pasta, cooked according to package, drained and rinsed in cold water

1 can garbanzo beans, drained & rinsed

1 container feta cheese (4 to 6 oz)

Fresh diced veggies (Use whatever you have on hand and what you love.  I used 2 roma tomatoes, 1 homegrown cucumber, 1/2 red onion, 1 orange bell pepper.)

Lemon Vinaigrette Dressing

Juice from 2 fresh lemons

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 1/2 tsp ground sea salt

3/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

Add lemon juice, Dijon, salt and pepper to bowl, and slowly whisk in the olive oil.

You can toss your dressing with your pasta, veggies, beans, and cheese and let it all marinate together.  Or if your family is weird like mine, you can keep it all separate and drizzle on the vinaigrette when you’re ready to eat.

Happy picnicking!

~julee~

 

I’m linking up with Silly Happy Sweet this week.

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