The Vegan Mediterranean Rice Noodle Salad recipe I’m bringing to you today is for a simple pasta salad with a few easy to prep ingredients, but it’s also packed with flavor. My risoni salad uses just a few simple ingredients like sundried tomatoes, fried diced zucchini, marinated canned artichokes, and oven-roasted broccoli. For the dressing, or rather the marinade, I use a simple vegan basil pesto that you can use in salads as well as in delicious pasta recipes .
Some tips for this Mediterranean Rice Noodle Salad
- If you like, you can also use fresh cherry tomatoes instead of the dried tomatoes. If the tomatoes are small, you only need to cut them in half, but if they are a bit larger, quarter them.
- Canned artichokes are easy to handle and come ready to use in this salad.
- Because you could also replace vegan parmesan with vegan feto to give the pasta salad a Greek touch. Feto gives the salad its own lemony and slightly salty note. So be careful with the salt.
- The baked broccoli is probably the hit in this delicious vegan Mediterranean rice noodle salad. I would never leave it out or change it.
- I also added crunchy pine nuts. You can also use almonds, pumpkin seeds or nuts. These add extra flavor and texture to this pasta salad.
- Pasta salad without mayo? Of course, as a creamy base, with a lot of basil flavor, our pesto brings the real flavor to this simple pasta salad. When you prepare the pesto, make sure you use little oil, as this will not make our salad too greasy.
Why you’ll love this summery pesto pasta salad
- It’s an easy side dish, a backyard BBQ, a feast to eat and an easy meal to carry to the office.
- It tastes fantastic!
- The ingredients are easy to obtain and easy to work with.
Another big plus of this easy pasta salad is that the portion can be easily increased to feed a crowd at your next buffet or BBQ. This makes it a great dish to add to your list of summer side salads.
if you like our vegan rice noodle salad, you might also be interested in these dishes:
- whole baked cauliflower
- Mediterranean chickpea salad naturally vegan
- Aubergine mini pizza with cashew cheese
- Couscous salad with feto and oven broccoli
- baked kohlrabi with sesame and veto
- Melon salad with cucumber and shiso cress
vegan mediterranean rice noodle salad
Ingredients
for the pasta salad:
- 200 G Risoni Rice noodles, Kritharaki
- Sea-salt*
- 1 broccoli small
- 2 tbsp. native olive oil*
- 1 zucchini
- 2 clove of garlic
- Black pepper* from the mill
- 2 tbsp. pine nuts* roasted
- 100 G Sun-dried tomatoes*
- 80 G artichoke hearts box, inserted
- 15-20 Kalamata olives*
- 60 G parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast
- 1 small Bunch of fresh basil
for the vinaigrette:
- 3 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar*
- Sea-salt*
- Black pepper* from the mill
- 3 tbsp. native olive oil*
- 6 tsp vegan basil pesto >>
- 2 tbsp. lemon juice
- 3 tbsp. water
Instructions
Prepare pasta salad:
- Preheat the oven to 200°C. Divide the broccoli into small florets and mix in a bowl with olive oil, a little salt and pepper. Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper and cook in the oven (middle rack) for about 20 minutes. Then let it cool down.
- Cook the risoni in salted water according to the instructions on the package until al dente, rinse with cold water and drain well in a colander.
- Peel the garlic and cut into thin slices.
- Wash zucchini, drain well and cut into small cubes or finely slice with a mandolin.
- Heat the olive oil in a pan, briefly sauté the zucchini and garlic together, season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.
- Roast the pine nuts in a pan without fat until golden brown.
- Drain the sundried tomatoes and cut into fine strips or pieces.
- Cut the olives into rings.
Vinaigrette:
- For the vinaigrette you will need a fresh basil pesto . You can find a recipe HERE . If you make the pesto vegan, simply use vegan parmesan or 2 tbsp yeast flakes.
- For the vinaigrette, mix light balsamic vinegar with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Beat in the olive oil, basil pesto, lemon juice, some water and a pinch of sugar.
Finish:
- Mix the risoni in a bowl with the vinaigrette. Leave for about 15 minutes.
- Then fold in the garlic zucchini, sundried tomato strips, artichokes, pine nuts and olives.
- Taste again and season if necessary.
- Arrange the pasta salad on plates or in a bowl. Scatter baked broccoli florets on top.
- Serve garnished with grated Parmesan (vegetarian) or yeast flakes (vegan) and fresh basil.