This simple Greek Pasta Salad is just the thing for potlucks and summer cookouts! The textures of crunchy veggies, al dente pasta, and flavors of a savory Greek dressing and feta cheese make this one of the best summer salads around!
An easy pasta salad sometimes sounds like just the thing for a light lunch or to take along to a gathering. This Greek pasta salad with feta cheese is one that you can throw together in just a few minutes!
It tastes light and refreshing, with the classic tastes of feta, olive, cucumber, and tomato that are the signatures of Greek cooking. You can always bulk it up by adding some grilled chicken or shrimp to make for a satisfying, cool dinner all on its own on hot nights.
What's In This Article
Ingredients in Greek Pasta Salad
These ingredients, and their measurements, are pretty flexible.
- Bowtie pasta
- Tomatoes: Grape tomatoes sliced in half make an easy addition to this salad, but any chopped tomato will work. Garden-fresh ones are always best!
- Cucumbers: We like English or Persian cucumbers best because they don’t need to be peeled first. These add a nice crispy, fresh crunch to the salad!
- Green bell pepper
- Kalamata olives: Really any kind of olive would work, but the purple jarred Kalamata olives are our favorites.
- Red onion: If your red onions have a really strong flavor, soak them in ice water for 10 minutes first.
- Feta cheese: Go for crumbled feta cheese if you prefer the flavor of feta to be in every bite. Or do larger chunks for a slightly different taste and texture.
- Fresh parsley: Nothing lightens and brightens a salad like some freshly chopped herbs!
- Greek dressing
How to Make Greek Pasta Salad
Start by bringing a large pot of salted water to a boil on the stove. Cook the pasta until it is al dente perfection. You don’t want to overcook the pasta in this dish or it won’t hold up to the dressing and other ingredients.
While the pasta cooks, prep the rest of the salad ingredients by chopping the veggies. Adding all of the dressing ingredients to a jar and shaking well until combined.
When the pasta is done, drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process so it doesn’t just soak up all the dressing as soon as it is added.
Combine the drained pasta in a large bowl with the tomatoes, green bell pepper, cucumber, red onion, kalamata olives, feta cheese, and parsley.
Pour the dressing over everything and toss to coat well. If you are making this Greek pasta salad recipe in advance, I recommend adding only half of the dressing. Then wait to add the rest of the dressing until right before serving since
the pasta will tend to soak up some of the dressing the longer it sits.
Homemade Greek Vinaigrette
We especially love that this salad feels lighter than other pasta salads because it’s made with a homemade vinaigrette instead of mayo. Nothing against mayo, but it’s such a nice way to change things up to bring this type of salad to a cookout!
If you want to make things easy, you can always pick up a bottle of Greek dressing from the store. But when it’s so easy to make at home, I figure I might as well just make it myself.
Storage and Variations
This Greek pasta salad will really keep in the fridge for 3-5 days. However, the pasta soaks up more of the dressing the longer it sits. It’s really best eaten the day it is made.
We enjoy bowtie pasta (also known as farfalle) for this salad because it’s size and shape.
It’s perfectly matched with the sliced cucumber, tomatoes and olives, but rotini or fusilli are also great choices. Even shells, macaroni noodles, or other similarly sized pasta will work.
More Summer Salads:
- Gouda and Corn Pasta Salad
- Ranch Pasta Salad
- shrimp Pasta Salad
- Frog Eye Salad
- Best Chicken Salad Recipe
- Antipasto Salad
- Lemon Orzo Salad
- Mediterranean Pasta Salad
Greek Pasta Salad Recipe
Ingredients
Salad
- 8 ounces bowtie pasta
- 1 1/2 cups grape tomatoes , sliced in half
- 1 seedless cucumber , sliced into half-circles or quarters
- 1 bell pepper , diced
- 1/2 small red onion , diced
- 1/2 cup Kalamata olives , drained
- 2/3 cup feta cheese , crumbed or cubed
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Dressing
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 2 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried dill
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions for al dente pasta. Drain well and rinse with cold water.
- While the pasta cooks, chop the vegetables and add them to a large bowl.
- Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake well.
- Add the rinsed and drained pasta to the bowl with the vegetables, olives, feta cheese, and parsley. Pour the dressing over the salad, tossing to coat everything evenly.
- If you've tried this recipe, come back and let us know how it was in the comments or ratings!
I loved the addition of my garden fresh parsley, made it so much better than other recipes I’ve tried. Sooo…very good!!
OMG Made it again, tried to kick it up one more notch and tried some Avocado and or Marinated Artichokes. Now I’m in deeper love with this salad!
Those are great ideas! Glad you still love it!
All time favorite recipe now! Family and extended family all thought this was exceptional. We may mix up the veggies and pasta types a little going forward but the dressing will always remain the same. No need to change anything, we just adjust things according to gardening season and what we grow. I especially love that you use honey instead of sugar. Thanks so much for sharing this!
Delicious! We loved it.
This is delicious. Just made it 1st X for weekday lunch working from home & paired with poached eggs on sunflower honey toast. Yum, yummy. Just decided to bring this delicious Greek Feta Salad to our friends Thanksgiving potluck on Thursday, which will be tasty even with roast turkey. Thanks Jessica for this heirloom recipe to make again & again. Allen – Seattle, WA.
So glad you loved it!
So yummy the best pasta salad I’ve made !!
Dressing is yummy
Thanks for sharing
Will definitely make again
So yummy on a hot summer night !
Thank you!
Absolutely delicious!!!
Thank you for the delicious recipe! My family ALL loved it! I added diced grilled chicken (seasoned with onion salt, garlic powder, and pepper) and omitted the olive (my family hates olives!) for a light dinner, and it was fabulous! Definitely a go to recipe from now on, thank you!
Fantastic! And thank you for coming back to let us know!
Very easy recipe!! I love Greek salad when dining out but never made it at home! This was a great choice!❤️
Thank you for coming back to let us know!!!
This is now my go-to lunch! It’s so good and keeps well in the refrigerator for days!
Woohoo! Love to hear it and thanks for coming back to let us know!
Really really good! Definitely going in my recipe collection.
Incredible!!!!
I’m tired of the same old pasta salad. OMG. This is such a wonderful & refreshing salad! I’ll never buy bottled dressing again. I love this! So easy to make. Thanks for sharing your recipe.
Absolutely loved it! I’m not one for measuring except for with the dressing so I had a lot of it left over that I’ve used on everything! Saving this as a favorite just for the dressing
Thanks for the feedback! I also like to toss a little fresh dressing on the leftovers- perk it up a bit 🙂
I also added green olives and pepperchini peppers. We won’t be eating until a Pickwick tomorrow. Looks good. Hope it turned out well
Love those additions! Hope everyone enjoys and Happy Memorial Day.
The dressing for this pasta salad was divine. Definitely a keeper.
Thank you, Debbie!
I followed the recipe to the T (or so I thought) besides the mustard. I didn’t have Dijon so I just used regular. It was super bitter with a metallic aftertaste. I added extra honey and it didn’t help. How can I save this? It seems like it would be great if not for that.
Hi Angie- there are two things that come to mind. Did you use iodized table salt? It can often have a metallic taste, try using sea salts or Kohser salt. Also, did you use a metal mixing bowl? The acids in this can react to a “reactive” bowl- like metal. This is the first I’ve heard of this issue with this recipe so I am perplexed if it wasn’t one of these two things.
Sooooooo good!!!! The dressing is perfact, actually going to keep a container of it on hand to use as my regular salad dressing
Fabulous! Thank you for coming back to let us know!
This recipe tastes amazing! Very colorful and flavorful. I recommended this recipe to my nutriton club at school and it was a bit! Substituted apple cider vinegar for the red wine vinegar once, and it tasted great too. Thank you for this recipe!
Thank you!
Great recipe!! I added more feta…Because it’s my favorite…and also more olives….
I don’t blame you- great adds!
One of our favorite pasta salads to make! It’s the perfect way to use up fresh veggies from the garden!