Pasta Salad Made Healthy + a Ancient Harvest Giveaway

Clean eating pasta salad made with black bean and quinoa noodles and a basil balsamic dressing. This healthy pasta salad is absolutely delicious! It’s also gluten-free, vegan and perfect for serving a crowd!

Happy Saturday! How’s your weekend going thus far. Mine has been filled with shopping, friends, good food, Pure Barre and a trip to the Farmers Market so I can’t complain.

I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this but I can’t. I’m just too excited because I know that you are going to LOVE this pasta salad.

It’s my mom’s old-school recipe. The one I used to request for every summer cookout growing up — only healthier and bit more spiced up.

I stuck with elbow macaroni noodles, but used Ancient Harvest’s new Black Bean & Quinoa Supergrain Pasta. It has only three ingredients (black bean flour, brown rice flour and quinoa flour) so it’s naturally gluten-free and has an ample amount of protein and fiber. Nutrient dense pasta = boom!

The traditional recipe calls for Miracle Whip… which definitely not EBF friendly so I skipped it and used an olive oil-based balsamic dressing with fresh basil. Other than that the salad ingredients are all the same.

And Mom will be happy to know that I left the 1/2 teaspoon of sugar in the recipe. Maybe it’s just nostalgia but I think it really does add a little something to the salad. I went with coconut sugar to keep things more natural and unrefined.

Overall, this healthy pasta salad is quite a gem. It’s not only easy to prepare, but it requires only minimal ingredients and tastes so fresh and delicious. The recipe makes a huge portion so it’s great for serving a crowd!

Aren’t the blue noodles fun? I think they’d be great to serve for the 4th of July!

Pasta Salad Made Healthy
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Clean eating pasta salad made with black bean and quinoa noodles and a basil balsamic dressing. This delicious pasta salad is gluten-free, vegan and perfect for serving a crowd!
Author: Brittany Mullins Serves: 6 cups
Ingredients

8 oz box Ancient Harvest Black Bean & Quinoa Pasta Elbows
2 cups tomatoes, chopped
2 cups cucumbers, peeled and chopped
¾ cup red onion, chopped
3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 Tablespoons basil, minced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon coconut sugar
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1½ teaspoons sea salt

Instructions

Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain and run cold water over cooked pasta to cool. Add pasta into a large bowl with tomatoes, cucumber, and onion.
Whisk together balsamic vinegar, basil, olive oil, coconut sugar, crushed red pepper and salt. Pour over salad ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate until cold. Serve.

Notes Inspired by my mom's macaroni salad. Adapted from Cooking Light's Macaroni Salad with Summer Tomatoes.
Nutrition Information Serving size: ¾ cup Calories: 148 Fat: 4g Carbohydrates: 23g Sugar: 4g Fiber: 4g Protein: 7g
3.3.3070
Isaac and I couldn’t get over how tasty the black bean & quinoa noodles were! They cooked up quickly, held together well and had such a good texture. I’ve definitely tried a few gluten-free pastas in the past that were mushy so I was really excited by how great these noodles turned out.

Ancient Harvest Giveaway

Want to try the Bean & Grain pasta for yourself? Enter to win an Ancient Harvest prize pack with 2 boxes of the Black Bean & Quinoa Pasta Elbows, 2 Boxes of the Red Lentil & Quinoa Pasta Rotelle, 1 box of quinoa flour and 1 box of traditional quinoa. <