Olive Tapenade and Tuna Pasta Salad

This olive tapenade and tuna pasta salad is a quick and easy, high-protein pasta salad recipe with tomatoes, parsley, feta, and tuna. It used olive tapenade as the main dressing ingredient, which provides a delicious briny, salty flavor!

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If you're an olive hater, you're probably going to want to skip this one because we're about to talk olive tapenade. A delicious spread on its own, it's also one of my favorite kitchen ingredient life hack! You might already know it, but here goes: olive tapenade makes an incredibly delicious foundation for pasta salad dressing. With just a lit bit of extra olive oil and lemon to help it coat all those noodles, you've got the perfect summer pasta salad in progress.

How to Make Olive Tapenade and Tuna Pasta Salad

The Ingredients

Here's what you'll need:

• Pasta - I've been *mildly* obsessed with chickpea pasta lately (especially the kinds by Banza and Barilla) because it helps me sneak an extra dose of protein in my day. But, feel free to pick your favorite kind or use what you have on hand. As for shapes, you're going to want something shorter like bowtie, rotini, cavatappi, or casarecce (what I used!).
• Tuna - I love using the white albacore tuna packed in water or olive oil for this recipe.
• Olive tapenade - I use store bought for convenience, though you can certainly make your own.
• Feta
• Tomatoes
• Parsley
• Lemon + olive oil + black pepper

The Pasta Salad

Start off by cooking your pasta according to the package instructions, meanwhile prepping the other ingredients in down times (such as waiting for the pasta water to boil).

All you'll need to do for the other ingredients is: drain the tuna, dice the tomatoes into large chunks (or halve grape/cherry tomatoes), and chop some parsley (I use love using kitchen shears for this). The rest is just a matter of retrieving items from your fridge or pantry (feta, tapenade, and/or lemons and pepper). If desired, you can whisk the olive tapenade in with a little more olive oil to create a thinner consistency.

Once your pasta is cooked and drained, combine everything together in a big bowl, toss with tapenade and either serve immediately, or place in the fridge, covered, until you're ready to eat it (if that's you, I admire your patience).

Guys, let me just say, this salad saved me this week for a few days of work lunches! Having a high-protein, nutrient dense meal in the middle of the work day helps keep my energy up throughout the afternoon.

Then on the non-work, summery, fun side of the equation, you've got your picnic lunches covered, as well as a side dish for grilling out, or bringing a tasty pasta salad to pass at a friend's barbecue.

Which reminds me... some other summery pasta salads you might like are: fruity caprese pasta salad (this is one I have repeat throughout summer!), pesto pasta salad with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes, or late summer veggie pasta salad.

For now, though, this olive tapenade and tuna pasta salad has your name all over it.

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