Creamy Lemon Dill Greek Pasta Salad
A few weeks ago my friend Jenni sent me a link to this recipe for Tzatziki Pasta Salad with the comment that, “it isn’t too Budget Bytes friendly (too many splurgy ingredients), but it’s really good!” I looked over the recipe and quickly decided that A) I needed to make it because it DID look really good, and B) I needed to budgetize it! My version, which I’m just calling Creamy Lemon Dill Greek Pasta Salad, is a little less splurgy, but still awesomely delicious! So good, in fact, that I almost ate a few forkfuls for breakfast this morning! 😜
Budget Swaps for Creamy Lemon Dill Pasta Salad
To make this pasta salad more budget friendly, I first had to identify the budget breaking ingredients, and there are a lot of them: Kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes, feta, red onion, Greek yogurt, artichoke hearts, and fresh dill.
To minimize the budget-killing effect of these ingredients I had to either cut back or substitute where I could, while maintaining the “feel” of the recipe. Here’s what I did:
- I reduced the amount of feta in the salad to just 2oz. because feta is pretty potent, so I knew I could get away with using less.
- I used dried dill in place of fresh, and fresh tomatoes in place of sun dried (funny how one ingredient can be less expensive dried than fresh, but vice versa for a different ingredient).
- While I would have loved to have just reduced the amount of kalamata olives, I couldn’t find a good deal on them on this particular day, so they went on the cut list.
- Since I cut the olives, I kept the artichoke hearts. Nixing both would have deviated a little too far from that Greek salad feel I was going for.
- I kept the red onion, but vowed to make use of the leftovers either in another recipe or by pickling them.
- And lastly, I kept the Greek yogurt because that’s the cornerstone of the flavor profile, but made sure to buy one of the little cups that were on sale.
The resulting Creamy Lemon Dill Greek Pasta Salad might be a little more expensive than most pasta salads, but at $1.73 per large servings (1.5 cups each, give or take some) it’s still a bargain and is enough to make a nice light lunch.
Oh, one more thing! I know dried dill is not that common of an ingredient, so if you can’t get it or don’t want to buy it just for this recipe, oregano also goes great with these flavors. It will make a dressing very similar to the marinade for my Greek Marinated Chicken.
Creamy Lemon Dill Greek Pasta Salad
Ingredients
CREAMY LEMON DILL DRESSING
- 5 oz container plain Greek yogurt ($1.00)
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise ($0.28)
- 1 clove garlic, minced ($0.08)
- 1 fresh lemon ( $0.67)
- 1/4 tsp salt ($0.01)
- 1/4 tsp dried dill ($0.05)
- Freshly cracked pepper ($0.05)
PASTA SALAD
- 1 lb. penne ($1.29)
- 1 cup grape tomatoes ($1.25)
- 1 cucumber (about 2 cups chopped) ($1.69)
- 15 oz. can quartered artichoke hearts ($2.59)
- 1/4 red onion ($0.34)
- 2 oz. feta ($1.12)
Instructions
- Prepare the dressing first so the flavors have time to blend. Use a zester or small-holed cheese grater to remove the zest from the lemon. In a small bowl, stir together the Greek yogurt, mayonnaise, garlic, 1 Tbsp of the lemon juice, 1/2 tsp of the lemon zest, salt, dill, and some freshly cracked pepper (about 10-15 cranks of a pepper mill). Refrigerate the dressing until ready to use.
- Cook the pasta, in lightly salted water, according to the package directions. Drain the pasta and rinse briefly with cool water to bring the temperature down. Let the pasta drain until it's slightly dry and tacky on the surface.
- While the pasta is cooking, slice the cucumber, then cut the slices into quarter rounds. Slice the grape tomatoes in half. Finely dice the red onion. Drain the artichoke hearts, then roughly chop them. Crumble the feta cheese.
- Once the pasta is cooled and drained, Place it in a large bowl and combine with the cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, artichoke hearts, feta, and creamy lemon dill dressing. Stir to coat. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to eat.
Scroll down for the step by step photos!
Step by Step Photos
Begin by removing the zest from one lemon. You’ll need about 1/2 tsp of the zest for the dressing, but you can keep the rest to use as a garnish.
Prepare the dressing first, so the flavors have time to infuse into the yogurt. In a small bowl, stir together one 5oz. container of Greek yogurt, 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 1 clove of minced garlic, 1/2 tsp of the lemon zest, 1 Tbsp of the lemon’s juice, 1/4 tsp dried dill, 1/4 tsp salt, and some freshly cracked pepper. If you can’t find a single-serving container of Greek yogurt that is exactly 5oz, no worries. That part is flexible. It seems like every brand is a different size, but anywhere between 5-7oz. will be okay.
Refrigerate the dressing until you’re ready to use it.
Cook one pound of penne pasta in lightly salted water, according to the package directions. Once cooked, drain in a colander and rinse briefly with cool water to bring the temperature down. Let the pasta drain until it’s slightly tacky or sticky on the surface. This will allow it to grip the dressing better than really wet pasta.
While the pasta is cooking, prepare the rest of the salad ingredients. Slice about 1 cup of grape tomatoes in half, cut one cucumber into quarter rounds (about 2 cups), dice 1/4 red onion, drain and roughly chop one 15oz. can of quartered artichoke hearts, and crumble 2oz. of feta.
Combine the drained pasta, the vegetables, and feta in a large bowl.
Pour the creamy lemon dill dressing on top, then stir to coat.
And you’re done! You can garnish with any extra lemon zest or a light sprinkle of dried dill.
Fast, easy, delicious, and a little more budget friendly. ;)
…and I DID end up having a bowl of this Creamy Lemon Dill Greek Pasta Salad for breakfast as I wrote this post. LOL. What can I say? The photos got to me. :)
Loved this! I made it for lunches for husband and I this week, and I think it will hold up pretty well. I did make some substitutions, and they worked well for anyone else interested. In the dressing, I replaced the dill with some dried sumac, chopped parsley, and dried oregano since my husband doesn’t like dill. (I still topped my servings with a lil dill!). We also substituted bell peppers for the cucumber, because I think it holds up better over the week. I’ll probably add cucumber to mine day-of. Also added a can of rinsed garbanzo beans, but left out the red onion.
To make it more of a meal, I marinated 1.3 lbs skinless boneless chicken thighs in a marinade of some of the extra ingredients I had (~ 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 clove minced garlic, lemon zest, salt and ground pepper). Baked these off, and topped the salad servings with the diced chicken later in the day – so basically a half a thigh per serving. Along with the garbanzo beans, this made it a bit more hearty.
That’s a bunch of changes, but I thought it might give other folks ideas because the base recipe really is very customizeable!
I tried this once before and loved it. Made it again last night just for the sauce and used whatever ingredients I had in the fridge for a pasta salad. I still have about half of the dressing left; what are some other uses?
I would probably be a good spread for stuffed pitas!
I just made this recipe because I’ve found myself wanting Greek food for dinner and it’s so delicious! I skipped on the lemon zest because I did not have any tools, but I served the pasta dish over a bed of arugula and added baked chicken. New favorite lunch dish!