Green pasta salad with edible flowers

5 from 80 votes

Green pasta salad with edible flowers

A beautiful, healthy, fresh and tasty pasta salad that family and friends will love! Serve as a light lunch or a side dish. Perfect for Mother's Day and other spring/summer occasions.

Prep Time10

Cook Time10

Total Time20

Course: Main Course, Salad

Cuisine: Italian, Mediterranean

Keyword: edible flowers, fusilli, pasta, salad

Servings:

Calories: 475kcal

Author: Jacqui

Ingredients

360 g fusilli pasta (12-13oz) or other short pasta
100 g baby spinach leaves (3.5oz)
2-3 spring onions
1 handful fresh parsley
1-2 sprigs fresh mint
1 sprig fresh marjoram
50 g pine nuts (2oz) toasted
50 g Parmigiano cheese flakes (leave out for vegan version. Strict vegetarians should use a vegetarian cheese)
extra virgin olive oil as required
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
edible flowers as required

Instructions

Prepare the pasta and spring onions

Clean the spring onion and remove ⅔ of the green part.
Bring plenty of water to a boil in a pot, add salt once it starts to boil and bring to the boil again.
Cook the pasta al dente according to the instructions on the packet. 5 minutes before the pasta is cooked, add the spring onion to the pot.
Save a little of the pasta cooking water and drain the pasta and spring onion. Cool them under cold running water. Put the pasta into a bowl and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix well

Make the sauce

While you are waiting for the pasta water to boil and the pasta to cook, wash and dry the parsley, marjoram and mint. Wash and dry the spinach leaves. Toast the pine nuts in a non-stick frying pan, for 1-2 minutes.
Put the herbs and half the spinach leaves into a blender with some olive oil and pulse a few times. Add the blanched spring onion and a little more oil and pulse again. Add half the toasted pine nuts and salt and pepper to taste. Pulse again. If the sauce seems dry add some more olive oil or a dash of the pasta cooking water.

Make the salad

Add the sauce to the pasta and mix. Add the remaining pine nuts to the pasta with the remaining spinach leaves and the thinly sliced Parmesan cheese flakes.
Mix the cold pasta and sauce with the pine nuts, spinach and cheese and serve decorated with edible flowers if you have them..

Notes

To make this salad vegan/vegetarian just leave out the cheese flakes or use a vegan/vegetarian cheese.

Nutrition