This Berry Mozzarella Pasta Salad is a summer pasta salad with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, mandarin oranges and fresh mozzarella balls. The salad is tossed together with a creamy, sweet key lime pie dressing made with vanilla yogurt and lime juice.
I can’t believe we are a month into summer and July 4th has passed. How did that happen? Once we have our annual beach vacation and the summer holidays have come and gone, we’re back to our normal schedule around here. That is, until we jet off to St. Thomas next month for wedding, but that’s another story for a different day.
I swear, we eat so much fruit this time of year. If you looked in our fridge, you’d be hard pressed to find anything but fruit, vegetables, water and cheese 🙂 Not a bad selection, if you ask me. Summer is the perfect time to stock up on extra produce. It seems it’s all I want these past few months.
It’s not easy to keep produce fresh for a few weeks, or so I thought. I’ve got to hand it to the Rubbermaid® Freshworks™ Produce Saver because since I started using the product nearly 5 month ago, none of my produce has gone to waste! Now, that truly deserves a standing ovation. Gone are the days where I lived in fear of produce rotting away and tossing money down the drain.
Now days, it’s so easy to stock up on fruit and eat it throughout the week. We love to make breakfast smoothies, top it on yogurt, mix it with dessert and toss into different dishes to add some refreshing sweetness.
I bought these berries about a week ago at a local farmer’s market and just knew that I wanted to use them for a recipe over the 4th of July. Usually, raspberries don’t last long with traditional store packaging. They always develop some sort of mold or get mushy after a day or two. However, these berries made it into this fruity pasta salad for the holiday.
Rubbermaid® FreshWorks™ Produce Saver is a brand new food storage container that uses revolutionary FreshVent™ technology to keep produce fresher up to 80% longer (when compared to store packaging). The containers are BPA free and dishwasher safe which makes clean up that much easier. Product comes in three sizes including small ($9.99), Medium ($12.99) and Large ($15.99).
Rubbermaid® Freshworks™ Produce Saver uses Revolutionary FreshVent™ Technology which is a patented membrane that naturally regulates the flow of O2 and CO2 to create the optimal environment to keep your produce nearly as fresh as the day it was picked.
That means that while traditional store packaging fails after a few days due to moisture issues, Rubbermaid® Freshworks™ Produce Saver works to evenly distribute and control the moisture level in the container that leads to longer lasting food. With produce lasting longer, those buy-one-get-one fruit sales will quickly become a weekly grocery shopping favorite. It makes it so much easier to keep fruit around and eat throughout the day now.
With fruit that stays fresh longer, I’m able to stock up on sales at the store and each healthier throughout the week. Since summer is in full swing, all I want is juicy, fresh fruit to stay refreshed during the hot summer days.
What are your favorite fruits to stock up on during the summer?
Berry Mozzarella Pasta Salad with Key Lime Pie Dressing
Ingredients
- 8 ounces bow tie pasta
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (divided)
- 1½ pounds strawberries (sliced)
- 9 ounces raspberries
- 6 ounces blackberries
- 10 ounces mandarin oranges (drained)
- 2 cups red grapes
- 8 ounces mozzarella balls
- ¼ teaspoon black sesame seeds
- 1 cup vanilla Greek yogurt
- zest of 2 limes
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1 teaspoon lime juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 + ½ tablespoons honey
- 3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a large pot filled with water and 1 tablespoon olive oil, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse pasta under cold water. Toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil to prevent pasta from sticking together. **Pasta can be prepared the night before and stored in the refrigerator, if needed. I like this method to ensure the pasta is cold.
- Slice strawberries and place in a medium bowl with raspberries, blackberries, grapes and mandarin oranges; set aside.
- To make the dressing, zest the lemon and limes then set the zest aside. Combine 1 cup vanilla Greek yogurt, lime juice, lemon juice, honey and brown sugar in a medium bowl and whisk until sugar has dissolved. Stir in a splash of vanilla extract. Add half the zest to the mixture and stir again.
- To assemble, combine pasta and 1/2 the dressing mixture to a large bowl. Pour into a serving bowl. Next, Toss the fruit with the mozzarella balls and the remainder of the dressing. Top with renaming zest to garnish.
- Serve cold
Nutrition
This post is sponsored by Rubbermaid® Freshworks™ and Socialstars™ as part of a #Freshworks sponsored series; all opinions are my own.
9 Comments
Jenn @ peas and crayons
07/06/2016 at 12:22 pmYou had me at key lime dressing! Hello magical!
Jessica Knott
07/27/2016 at 2:19 pmIt is seriously so amazing! Thanks, Jenn!
Jamie | The Kitchenarium
07/06/2016 at 12:56 pmThis is mouthwatering beautiful! I wouldn’t have thought to do a sweeter spin on pasta salad.
Jessica Knott
07/27/2016 at 2:19 pmI wouldn’t have it any other way, thanks, Jamie!
Cookilicious
07/06/2016 at 1:57 pmInteresting combo for a salad I must say! The pics looks amazing.
Catherine
07/06/2016 at 2:59 pmA little sweet and a little savory is the way to go. This salad is beautiful and sounds delicious. Perfect summer side. xo, Catherine
Pat
07/06/2016 at 3:27 pmWoW! That is a beauty! What a nice mix of flavors, I love all those ingredients. Pinning!
Jolina - The Unlikely Baker
07/06/2016 at 3:41 pmThis salad looks ah-mazing. How can you go wrong with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, mandarin oranges and fresh mozzarella balls?? I cannot wait to try this. And I think our fridge are twins 🙂 It’s packed with the same stuff! And yeah, keeping them fresh is becoming an issue. Must check out those food containers.
Jessica Knott
07/27/2016 at 2:20 pmFridge twinning 🙂 I wouldn’t have it any other way! Thanks, Jolina!