This easy Tortellini Caprese Salad makes the most of summer tomatoes and fresh basil, and can be made in under 20 minutes. Perfect for a light vegetarian lunch or dinner.
This recipe adds tortellini and pesto to a traditional caprese salad recipe. Store-bought pesto works just fine, but if you want to make your own, please try my Simple Lemon Basil Pesto.
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Why Make This Recipe
- Deliciously Simple: Only 6 ingredients (plus salt and pepper), but the combination is super tasty.
- Summer’s Bounty: This pasta salad recipe highlights ripe summer tomatoes, and is a great use for that summer basil plant that’s getting out of control.
- Perfect for Potlucks: Make a batch of this to bring to a summer potluck—it’s great lukewarm or cold, and can be made in advance. Plus, since everything in the salad is bite-sized, no need for a knife!
🥗 Ingredients
- Tomatoes: We recommend cherry tomatoes for this tortellini caprese salad with pesto, because cutting them in half gets you a perfect bite when combined with a piece of cheese and a tortellini. Also, they tend to hold their shape better than a chopped-up large tomato. But use what you have!
- Tortellini: Any stuffed bite-size pasta would work here, and you could choose a stuffing other than cheese. In fact, you can replace this with really any kind of pasta. This recipe would be lovely with penne and rotini as well.
- Mozzarella Cheese: Bocconcini or ciliegine will make your life easier, as these are small mozzarella balls. But feel free to get a large ball of fresh mozzarella and chop it into pieces.
- Mayonnaise: We prefer Hellman’s Mayonnaise (known as Best Foods in the western U.S.), but you can use whatever you like (or make your own!).
- Pesto: While basil pesto is perfect for summer, especially if you are making your own, you can use whatever kind of pesto you like. Arugula or kale pesto would work, or try this Lemony Ramp Pesto with Basil.
🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
Rinse a pint of cherry tomatoes, and slice each in half. Prepare 8 ounces of fresh mozzarella cheese by cutting into smaller pieces if it is not in bite-sized chunks.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, then add 1 package of cheese tortellini. Cook tortellini according to the package instructions, reserving a couple of tablespoons of cooking liquid before draining. Drain tortellini and rinse under cool water until lukewarm.
In a small bowl, whisk together ⅓ cup basil pesto and ¼ cup mayonnaise.
Put tortellini in a large bowl and toss with pesto sauce, tomatoes, mozzarella, ¼ cup chopped basil, and ½ teaspoon black pepper. If salad is not saucy enough, add a tablespoon of the reserved cooking liquid and stir (then add more if needed). Season to taste with sea salt, then serve.
Note that this recipe is extremely flexible. Make your life easy and use whatever amount of tortellini comes in your refrigerated package. Then add as much mozzarella cheese and cherry tomatoes as you like!
🧐 Recipe FAQs for Tortellini Caprese Salad
Yes, absolutely! You can make this recipe a day or two ahead of serving. Toss it together and refrigerate it. You can serve it cold, at room temperature, or warm. If the pasta sauce dries out a bit, add a little water or a little more pesto before serving.
We don’t recommend freezing this dish. Freezing uncooked tortellini works just fine, but once it is cooked, the combination of freezing and defrosting results in a too-soft texture for the pasta.
Caprese refers to a traditional Italian salad featuring tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, basil, and olive oil. It is often arranged in overlapping circles on a plate, and features the red, green, and white colors of the Italian flag. In this version, we’ve included not just regular basil, but pesto, which is a combination of basil, olive oil, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese.
Burrata is delicious in a more traditional caprese salad like this Burrata Caprese with Peaches. Burrata has a more luscious texture, due to the creamy insides. In this recipe, where the ingredients are all tossed together, we think you’d end up with a messier tortellini salad than you’d like if you choose to use burrata instead of mozzarella. No doubt it would still be delicious though!
👩🍳 Expert Tips
To make a truly gourmet version of this tortellini pasta salad, make your own mayonnaise. We have instructions for making mayonnaise by hand in recipes like this Truffle Aioli and Black Garlic Aioli. You could also combine the pesto and homemade mayonnaise in one go, by making this Pesto Aioli, and using that to toss with the tortellini.
This recipe is extremely easy, but we do have some tips for working with tortellini. Make sure to read the package instructions when cooking tortellini, and even pull out a piece to taste if it looks to you like it’s getting close to done. Overcooked tortellini turns mushy quickly. Also, do rinse the tortellini in cold or cool water when it is done—that will stop the cooking process. Finally, drain the pasta well before tossing with the pesto sauce and the rest of the ingredients. That will make sure you don’t have a watery tortellini caprese salad!
Try turning the ingredients for this recipe into tortellini caprese skewers by tossing just the tortellini with the pesto sauce, then spearing on skewers along with a cherry tomato, a piece of mozzarella cheese, and a basil leaf.
If this recipe helps inspire you to cook more with tortellini, you may want to check out another of our favorite recipes, this Pesto Tortellini Salad with Chicken.
Other Summer Tomato Recipes
If you love summer tomatoes as much as we do, you’re going to want check out some of our other favorite tomato recipes. And, check out our entire Summer Recipes archive for more ideas for cooking with seasonal produce.
If you try this Caprese Tortellini Salad recipe, we would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to us. And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter. We'd love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!
📖 Recipe
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Tortellini Caprese Salad
Ingredients
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes (about 13.5 ounces)
- 8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese bocconcini or ciliegine preferred
- 9 ounces refrigerated cheese tortellini
- ⅓ cup pesto
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil plus more for garnish
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- Coarse sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Rinse cherry tomatoes, and slice each in half.
- If your mozzarella cheese is not in bite-sized chunks, cut into smaller pieces.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, then add tortellini.
- Cook according to the package instructions, reserving a couple of tablespoons of cooking liquid before draining.
- Drain tortellini and rinse under cool water until lukewarm.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the pesto and mayonnaise.
- Put tortellini in a large bowl and toss with pesto sauce, tomatoes, mozzarella, chopped basil, and black pepper. If salad is not saucy enough, add a tablespoon of the reserved cooking liquid and stir (then add more if needed).
- Season to taste with sea salt, then serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Instagram Users: Now that you've made this caprese pasta salad recipe, tag us @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because we'd love to see your results!
More About Molly
Cooking healthy(ish) meals with seasonal ingredients is my passion. Trained as a French pastry chef, I spent over 10 years as a personal chef. Here you'll find well-tested recipes that you and your family will love!
Linda says
2 words: Oh my! This is delish at room temperature or cold. I highly recommend it.
Molly Pisula says
Thanks so much! I agree! 🙂
mimi rippee says
This is fabulous! Such a smart idea to put the tortellini with the tomatoes. And who doesn't love pesto?!
Chef Molly says
Right?? I love pesto on anything! And it's really tasty in this salad.
Sara says
I love how simple this recipe is, yet it's packed with flavor. Definitely a win!
Chef Molly says
Thanks so much, Sara! Love when easy recipes are so tasty!