This vegan pasta salad recipe is perfect for picnics! A creamy, no-mayo tahini dressing coats curly noodles, summer veggies, and briny artichokes.
This vegan pasta salad is basically a big bowl of sunshine! It’s full of colorful produce, like cherry tomatoes, yellow squash, and green beans, and artichokes and olives add delicious briny flavor. To tie it all together, I make a tangy, creamy tahini dressing. Because this dressing is totally mayo-free, it travels extremely well. As a result, this vegan pasta salad is a perfect dish to bring to a cookout or picnic. It’s so fresh, vibrant, and fun that I’m planning to make it all summer long. Once you try it, you will be, too!
Vegan Pasta Salad Recipe Ingredients
To make this vegan pasta salad recipe, you’ll need these simple ingredients:
- Pasta, of course! Use any short, curly pasta shape you like. Of course, use gluten-free pasta if you need this recipe to be gluten-free.
- Spiralized summer squash – To lighten this salad up, I mix spiralized yellow squash with the regular pasta noodles. You feel like you’re eating a big pile of pasta, but actually, it’s mostly veggies!
- Haricots verts – They add vibrant color and crunch to this vegan pasta salad.
- Cherry tomatoes – What’s a summer salad without them? I love how their juicy texture contrasts with the crisp haricots verts and al dente pasta.
- Navy beans – For plant-based protein and hearty, creamy texture.
- Red onion – For sharp depth of flavor.
- Kalamata olives and artichoke hearts – I love their briny taste with the fresh veggies and tangy dressing.
- Sunflower seeds – For crunch!
- And fresh herbs – Tender, aromatic herbs like parsley and basil take this salad over the top.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
Last but not least, you need the dressing! It’s lightly creamy, sweet, and tangy, made with tahini, almond milk, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, and Dijon mustard.
Whisk together the dressing, and add the cooked pasta, veggies, beans, olives, and artichokes to a large bowl. Toss them with the dressing, and fold in the sunflower seeds and fresh herbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and enjoy!
Vegan Pasta Salad Recipe Variations
This vegan pasta salad recipe is delicious as written, but it’s totally customizable! Change it up based on what you’re craving or what you have on hand. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Make an Italian version with roasted red bell peppers instead of green beans.
- Simplify it by skipping the spiralized squash and increasing the pasta.
- Doesn’t matter if it’s vegan? Use 3/4 cup halved mini mozzarella balls instead of the navy beans.
Feel free to toss in your favorite summer veggies and herbs. Let me know what variations you try!
Vegan Pasta Salad Serving Suggestions
This recipe is perfect for picnics, as it holds up well if you make it ahead of time. Toss it together and enjoy it right away, or prep it up to 2 days in advance. Store it in the fridge until you’re ready to eat.
Serve this vegan pasta salad with Caprese sandwiches, chickpea salad sandwiches, or Grilled Veggie Skewers drizzled in Greek Salad Dressing. It’s also an excellent side dish for these classic cookout recipes:
Round out the meal with a fresh fruit salad.
When I’m not planning a picnic, I love to meal prep this salad for lunch. Thanks to the protein-packed navy beans, hearty pasta, and colorful veggies, it’s a fresh, satisfying meal on its own.
More Favorite Picnic Salads
If you love this easy vegan pasta salad, try one of these picnic salads next:
- Easy Pasta Salad
- Watermelon Salad with Feta and Mint
- Greek Salad
- Best Broccoli Salad
- Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
- Creamy Coleslaw
- Macaroni Salad
Want more summer salad ideas? Check out this post for 37 fresh salad recipes. Then, find 85+ delicious vegan recipes here!
Vegan Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup haricots verts, sliced in half lengthwise and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 8 ounces short curly pasta
- 2 medium yellow squash, spiralized or very thinly sliced
- 1 (14-ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and sliced into quarters
- ¾ cup cooked navy beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 heaping cup halved cherry tomatoes
- scant ¼ cup thinly sliced red onion
- ¼ cup Kalamata olives, sliced in half
- ½ cup chopped parsley
- ½ cup chopped basil
- 2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
- ½ teaspoon sea salt, more to taste
dressing
- ¼ cup tahini
- ¼ cup almond milk or water
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard
- ¼ teaspoon maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil and place a bowl of ice water nearby. Blanch the haricots verts for 1 minute, then transfer to the ice water. Drain and pat dry.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Prepare the pasta according to the instructions on the package, cooking just past al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water.
- Make the dressing: In a small-medium bowl, whisk together the milk, tahini, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, mustard, maple syrup, salt, and pepper.
- In a very large bowl, combine the pasta, haricots verts, yellow squash, artichoke hearts, navy beans, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and olives. Toss with the dressing. Mix in the parsley, basil, and sunflower seeds. Season to taste with more salt (I add ½ teaspoon).
- Serve at room temperature or store in the fridge for up to 2 days. Season to taste before serving.
Love love this recipe. I’m slightly passed middle age. 53. I do have a vast knowledge of preparing all the crap that makes us feel like crap. LoL. One year of Culinary that mirrors the first year curriculum to The Culinary Institute. These salads make me happy again. Make me wanna create super healthy from scratch masterpieces. I just did a Spaghetti Cucumber Negro Bean Salad. Accompanied by Ken’s Steak House Lite Raspberry Almond Vinergrette. I think I spelled that V word wrong. But wowsers. I falling in love with cooking again
My sister made this for a pool party and it was so amazingly delicious!! I will be making this again and again!!
This is by far the best pasta salad I’ve ever had. It makes a large batch and my husband and I ate it all in a few days.
I’m so glad to hear!
Where did you find the pasta? I love the shape and cannot wait to make this! Thank you 😊
My first time making this…do I add the squash fresh or cook it a bit first? or will the heat of the pasta kind of cook it a little?
You can add it raw. When it’s cut this way, it’ll wilt a little but still have a nice crisp bite when coated with the dressing.
You had me at ‘briny’. I made this today as a trial run for a summer party and holy moly it was fantastic! A definite go to summer salad😁. Hoping I don’t hog it all during my party.
Wow! This is a flavor explosion!! I had this on a small bed of mixed greens and topped with avocado and mixed in brown rice noodles. I then squeezed fresh lemon over the top. This was a magnificent recipe I added to my bookmarks!
I’ve never made pasta salad, decided to try this after a quick web search of vegan pasta salad. I kinda added my own veggies, used chickpea pasta. I’ve also never had tahini before so I made it homemade (biggest mistake) real quick using the first recipe I found online. I also did not have Dijon mustard, so I just used this yellow mustard that ended up being very expired. Then I used balsamic and white vinegar as a sub for apple cider vinegar. It was not good, too many subs and the strong tahini with my vinegar tasted like vomit. If I were to follow this recipe a lot better this would have definitely been 5 stars. But I’ll have to deal with my monstrosity of a salad for now.
Ha, let me know how it goes next time when you have more of the ingredients 🙂
Thank you… I love these salad recipe😊
I’m obsessed with this recipe.
so happy to hear that!
This was really very good!
I used water, as I don’t keep milk alternatives at home, and chick peas instead of navy beans.
Using tahini as dressing was a new, but very tasty, experience for us!
Thanks for the inspiration!
Incredibly delicious recipe, Jeanine! I was curious as to what kind of pasta you used for your recipe; their appearance kind of reminds me of the noodles from those instant noodle packets or cups. Would it be OK to use honey instead of maple syrup and almonds or pumpkin seeds if there are no sunflower seeds available? We are excited to try this! Kudos!
Thanks Elizabeth! It was actually a long curly kind of pasta that I broke into smaller pieces (I can’t remember the name of the shape). Fusilli works too!
Yep, it’s ok to use honey instead of maple and almonds or pumpkin seeds – all would be delicious here! I hope you enjoy!
I couldn’t find sunflower seeds or tahini at my store, so had to sub in pine nuts and plain Greek yogurt instead for the dressing, but it lent a very Mediterranean flavor and is pretty delicious! Also subbed out the navy beans for garbanzo as well like some others did. Overall a super solid recipe though I definitely made waaaaay too much for one person-whoops! Will definitely be making again though!
I found it on Amazon. Probably could have made a trip crosstown to the While Foods, but on Amazon it’s called Fusilli con Buco.
Holy fabulous! This was a huge hit at my 4th of July BBQ and I already have a request from a friend (a fellow IIN health coach like myself) to make this for a pool party at the end of the month. Do you have any thoughts about using a bean pasta, e.g. lentil, in place of the regular pasta?
Haha, yay, I’m so glad it was such a hit! I think it would be fine with one of the bean pastas – in my opinion, they never taste as good as regular pasta (of course!), but with all of the veggies going on here, it should blend in just fine. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!
Of course, it’s well past July, but I just made mine with a red lentil penne pasta (from Trader Joes because of course, I work there and all my food comes from there ;)) and it was fantastic! I thought it paired well with the tahini dressing!
This dish is literally a ray of sunshine!
Can’t wait to make that tahini dressing!!! 🙂
This salad has my name all over it! Tahini, artichoke hearts and haricot verts are some of my favorite things right now! Pair them together, and #swoon.
I hope you love it! We’re obsessed with this combo!
Where did you get that beautiful squiggly pasta?
Hi Becky, I’m so embarassed, but I’ll have to go back to whole foods and see what it was called and let you know. It was a long curly pasta that I broke up – but any short fusilli-like shape will work here 🙂
Found the pasta! Fusilli col buco. (long cut fusilli)