This tasty salad is a great way to enjoy pasta without filling up on a whole bowl of starchy noodles. The lemon dressing is bright and flavourful, and the chickpeas give you a full serving of protein.
Gemelli pasta is a really neat shape. Apparently you pronounce it Jay-Mel-Eee, which is totally counterintuitive to me. But I suppose Italian is one of the languages I haven’t really studied!
Anyways, its a cute shape with curled sides. It can either be straight or twisted – mine are straight, and kind of look stranger because of it. It makes a good choice for this salad because it’s easy to catch on the fork, but you could substitute in bowties or another similarly sized noodle if you wanted.
If you are a dairy-eater, you could add some parmesan to this salad for a bit of extra salt. I don’t think its really necessary, as the hemp hearts add that sort of topping-texture and you can always flake on a little extra sea salt if you’re missing a salty crunch. But the option is there!
Lemon and Cherry Tomato Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup pasta (I used gemelli)
- 3/4 cup cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup chickpeas
- 2 tbsp hemp hearts
- salad greens
Dressing
- 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp dried basil
Instructions
Cook the pasta according to the package instructions. Drain and allow to cool, drizzling with a little olive oil to keep it from sticking together.
Wash and put salad greens in a large bowl. Slice the tomatoes and add the chickpeas. Add the cooled pasta.
In a bowl or measuring cup, combine the dressing ingredients (squeezing the juice from the lemon) and whisk together. Drizzle onto the salad and combine (either with tongs or with your hands).
Add the hemp hearts and serve.
