Summer Vegetable Tortellini Salad

Summer Vegetable Tortellini Salad Loaded with cheese-stuffed tortellini, fresh-from-the-garden zucchini and summer squash, and dressed with lemony herb vinaigrette. So fabulously tasty, you'll need to make a double batch!

It is truly amazing how much my husband can eat. Generally when I cook, I make double what you would think a family of three could eat. And it still gets gone.

You would think after 15 years of this, I would be used to it. But no, his appetite still amazes me every time.

And so, it was no different with this Summer Vegetable Tortellini Salad.

Loaded with cheese-stuffed tortellini, fresh-from-the-garden zucchini and summer squash, halved cherry tomatoes, and all dressed with a lemony dill vinaigrette, it is truly hard to resist.

I made a double batch - which I thought was a huge batch. And then planned for us to eat it over the next several days. A double batch is 2 pounds of tortellini and about 10 cups of fresh vegetables, give-or-take a little. I mean, that's a huge salad!

Would you like to guess how long it lasted in our house? Go ahead - take a guess.

2 days!!

That's it. It lasted 2 days. And gone.

But I guess with a salad as tasty as this Summer Vegetable Tortellini Salad, I can't say I blame him for gobbling it up so quickly. Loaded with cheese-stuffed tortellini, fresh-from-the-garden zucchini and summer squash, halved cherry tomatoes, and all dressed with a lemony dill vinaigrette, it is truly hard to resist.

Besides it's fabulous deliciousness, another beauty of this salad is its versatility.

You can use pretty much any vegetables you'd like. I personally love the zucchini/summer squash/cherry tomatoes combination, but it can certainly be changed up to suit personal tastes or to accommodate what's on hand in the refrigerator, if you'd like.

To make it with zucchini and summer squash, I cut the squash into large matchsticks, like this:

Then I blanch the zucchini and summer squash to partially cook it, which makes it soft and tender. Blanching also takes out that kind of "squeaky" texture that comes with biting into a piece of raw squash.

I definitely like the texture of blanched squash in the salad much better than raw.

Besides it's fabulous deliciousness, another beauty of this salad is its versatility. You can use pretty much any vegetables you'd like.

Combine the blanched squash together with prepared cheese tortellini and halved cherry tomatoes. Then whip up a simple dressing of white wine vinegar, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, and some seasonings.

You can whisk the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl, our put them in a sealable jar like I do, and give them a good shake to get them mixed.

Pour the dressing over the tortellini mixture and gently toss the salad to get everything well coated.

I think the matchstick shapes of the zucchini and summer squash contrast nicely against the rounded shapes of the tortellini and cherry tomatoes. And the color combination is quite pretty, too, don't you think?

So grab that fresh-from-the-garden zucchini and summer squash and whip up a bowl of this tasty Summer Vegetable Tortellini Salad.

But be warned ... If you've got a big eater in the house like my husband, you may just need to make a double batch!