simple greek pasta salad.

last night we celebrated the recent engagement of our good friends, kristen and rory. kristen and rory have been dating just over five years (they met at my party! matchmaker right here, haha) and they will say “i do” this coming june. i am thrilled for them!

 as the maid-of-honor and the official food fanatic, i was in charge of bringing some of the delicious eats & treats for the party. i decided to do two sweet and two savory, every party needs a mix of both. for the sweet, i snagged a baker’s dozen from the sweet tooth fairy. their gourmet cupcakes are INCREDIBLE! they even won cupcake wars on the food network.

i made the personalized toppers with pic monkey.

i also made a batch of my peanut butter cup peanut butter cookies.

on the savory side of things, i picked up an italian meat & cheese tray from caputo’s deli–best italian deli in town! marshall always requests a meat & cheese tray just for himself. one of these days i am going to bring one home for dinner, hah.

i also whipped up a super simple greek pasta salad. it was only five ingredients and couldn’t have been easier to throw together. the best part is that everyone at the party loved it! 

i got all five ingredients from trader joe’s, so if you have one in your area you should try to snag these exact ingredients. but, not to worry, if you don’t have a trader joe’s you can always find an equivalent to these ingredients at your local grocery store!

five ingredient greek pasta salad
prep time: 5 minutes
cook time: 15 minutes
yield: 10 cups (20 one-half cup servings)

ingredients:

• 10 oz pesto filled tortellini (any type of pasta will work here, but a filled tortellini is best)
• 7 oz olive tapenade
• 6 oz crumbled feta with mediterranean herbs (or regular will work)
• 4 oz greek style feta dressing
• 2 cups grape tomatoes

directions:

1. cook tortellini according to package directions (the ones i had took 15 minutes.)
2. rinse well with very cold water and shake to dry.
3. in a large bowl combine cooked tortellini with olive tapenade and feta.
4. pour dressing over the pasta and stir to combine.
5. fold in grape tomatoes. 
6. store in airtight container in the fridge until ready to serve. 

step-by-step photo tutorial:

cook tortellini according to package directions (the ones i had took 15 minutes.)

rinse well with very cold water, drain, and shake off all excess water.

in a large bowl combine cooked tortellini with olive tapenade and feta.

pour dressing over the pasta and stir to combine.

fold in grape tomatoes. 

store in airtight container in the fridge until ready to serve. 

enjoy!

ideally, you’d want to wait until the salad is chilled before serving, but if you are in a rush you CAN serve it a little warm.

this recipe makes twenty 1/2-cup servings. here are the nutritional stats per serving:

if you aren’t cooking for a crowd, you can easily halve or quarter this recipe! it also stores very well for up to a week.

well, i’m off to soak up my sunday. hope you enjoy your day!

xo. janetha g.