A simple pasta salad recipe using fresh basil pesto as the dressing. It’s an incredibly flavorful and fresh summer recipe that’s perfect for cookouts. Plus it’s really hard to argue with the pesto, tomato, fresh mozzarella, and pasta combo in every bite.

This recipe takes your standard Italian pasta salad ingredients (cucumber, kalamata olives, red onion, cherry tomatoes) and turns it on its head with the addition of fresh mozzarella and basil pesto. My favorite side for grilled chicken, steak tips, and a watermelon margarita. For best results, make your own pesto or buy it as fresh as possible.

I did not add green or red bell peppers to mine, however, a lot of recipes call for it if you’d like to substitute.

Fresh Basil Pesto

Homemade pesto is really easy to make and is so much better than store-bought. My basil pesto consists of fresh basil, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, garlic, salt, and pepper. Everything is blended together in a food processor to render a smooth, yet slightly granular sauce. If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a standard blender or single-serve blender instead. Just don’t blend too aggressively or it will turn into a creamy paste.

Sometimes small grocery stores or local farmer’s markets will have fresher locally made pesto that is usually better than brand-name pesto sauce. You can tell how fresh pesto is by how green it is. Old pesto will take on a duller and deeper dark green color.

Fresh Mozzarella

You have some options here. The target amount is 8 ounces of fresh mozzarella per batch. You can use mozzarella pearls (the best option as they’re small), cherry-sized mozzarella balls (I usually half them), or a chopped 8-ounce ball of fresh mozzarella. Moral of the story, always go FRESH.

More Pesto Recipes

• Baked pesto pasta with mozzarella
• Pesto shrimp pasta
• Pesto pizza
• Pesto shrimp skewers

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