Avocado Pasta Salad

Avocado pasta salad is an easy and healthy side dish for dinner, cookouts and parties. It’s super creamy and filled with veggies and it’s also vegan, gluten free and dairy free!

Are you an avocado lover? I’m a huge fan of it! It’s so filling, full of healthy fat and so versatile. When I realized I don’t have many summertime side dishes on my site, this recipe was the first one I thought of.

I love how this summer avocado pasta salad is naturally gluten free and dairy free. When you take it to a cookout, no one will know how healthy they’re eating!

Avocado pasta salad ingredients:

• Gluten free pasta: I like to use Banza rotini or a rice-based pasta. You can find these at any grocery store in the pasta section! I love using rotini because it has so much texture and the twirls hold the creamy avocado dressing so well
• Avocado: obviously the star of the show! It’s used in the creamy dressing and chopped up in chunks with the pasta.
• Spinach: this gives the dressing a super green color, not to mention extra healthy benefits that people won’t even know!
• Veggies: this recipe calls for fresh corn, tomatoes and red onion. Bonus points if you have any of these fresh from your garden!

How to make avocado pasta salad:

1. Start by making the pasta for the pasta salad. Just follow the directions on the back of the box! I boiled mine for 8-10 minutes. You’ll add the corn to the pasta right at the end to boil it a bit. Feel free to make this a day or two in advance to help save time!
2. Next, make the creamy avocado pasta dressing. Add all of the dressing ingredients to the bowl of a food processor or blender and blend on high until creamy. Set aside and get ready to prep the rest of the ingredients!
3. Finally, add the tomatoes, avocado, red onion, herbs and seasoning to the pasta and corn and toss. Finish by adding the reserved avocado dressing and stir thoroughly until all the pasta is coated.

Tips for making this pasta and avocado salad:

• Make the pasta and corn in advance to save time.
• Chop everything in advance to save time.
• Add more salt to taste, depending on how seasoned you like it!
• Cut your avocado in half then use a knife to pull out the pit before taking off the avocado skin.

If you love this recipe as much as I do, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and tag me with @what_mollymade so I can see it and feature you!

More healthy side dishes:

• Summer corn salad
• Crispy brussel sprouts
• Strawberry spinach salad

Avocado pasta salad

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Avocado pasta salad is an easy and healthy side dish for dinner, cookouts and parties. It's super creamy and filled with veggies and it's also vegan, gluten free and dairy free!

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Prep Time20 mins

Cook Time10 mins

Total Time40 mins

Servings: 14 people

Author: Molly Leonard

INGREDIENTS

For the avocado dressing:

• 4 cups lightly packed spinach stemmed
• Juice from 1 large lemon
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 avocados cut in half
• 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 1-2 Tablepsoons of water

For the pasta:

• 16 ounces gluten free pasta I used banza chickpea Rotini
• 4 ears of corn kernels removed from the cobb
• 1 pint grape tomatoes halved (about 2 cups)
• ½ cup red onion chopped
• 1 avocado pitted and chopped into 1 inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped chives
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

• Cook pasta according to package instructions - I cooked 16 oz pasta in 4 Qts water with 1 tablespoon salt and boiled 8-9 minutes for the Banza pasta. About 4 minutes before pasta is done cooking, add the corn to the boiling water and pasta and cook for 4 minutes until corn is crisp. Rinse corn and pasta under running cold water to chill pasta. Drain well and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
• In a food processor or blender, combine half of the spinach, 3 roughly halved avocados, lemon juice, garlic clove, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Pulse until blended then add 2 cups of spinach and blend until creamy and smooth. Add 1-2 tablespoons of water if the mixture is too thick. Stop to scrape down the sides as needed.
• Add avocado sauce to pasta bowl and toss with a wooden spoon to coat the pasta and corn. Add the halved tomatoes, chopped avocado, red onion, chives, salt and pepper. Toss salad together until evenly coated. Season to taste with more salt and black pepper. Chill for one hour then serve same day.

Nutrition

Serving: 0.5cup | Calories: 380kcal | Carbohydrates: 51.5g | Protein: 19g | Fat: 15.8g | Saturated Fat: 2.5g | Fiber: 14.8g | Sugar: 8.3g

Did you make this recipe?Mention @What_mollymade or tag #WhatMollyMade so I can see it and feature you!