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
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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.
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Wash and put salad greens in a large bowl. Slice the tomatoes and add the chickpeas. Add the cooled pasta.
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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).
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Add the hemp hearts and serve.
