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This Tuna Pasta Salad with shell noodles, peas, tuna, celery, and Greek yogurt is fast, healthy, and a dish your whole family can enjoy!
Tuna Pasta Salad
I don't know about you, but for me, warm weather screams pasta salad! This tuna pasta salad is a classic! It easy, fast, and I usually have all the ingredients that I need to throw it together. My kids love this pasta salad and we eat it for lunch all the time, but it works great as a dinner or side dish.
I also love feeding my kids something that I know has great health benefits. Did you know tuna fish is a great source of protein and contains omega 3 fatty acids that can help fight heart disease? For the sauce in this recipe I use a mixture of mayonnaise and Greek yogurt. I love the creaminess that the Greek yogurt adds, and it's packed with protein. You could also serve this dish with whole wheat pasta.
How to make Tuna Pasta Salad:
Cook your pasta according to package instructions, then drain them and allow them to cool a little. I like to use mini shell noodles, but any type of bite-size pasta can be used.
While the noodles cook, chop the celery and onion, drain the tuna, and warm the peas (you could also add the peas to the boiling pasta water during the last minute of cooking).
Mix the mayonnaise and Greek yogurt together until smooth.
Add the cooked pasta, tuna, celery, onion, and peas to a large mixing bowl. Pour the dressing on top and toss to coat.
If you'd like to make this recipe in advance I would suggest waiting to add the sauce until you're ready to serve, otherwise the noodles will soak up the sauce and it wont have the creaminess that you want.
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Tuna Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 8 ounces small shells pasta, , or your favorite bite-size pasta
- 7 ounces canned albacore white tuna, packed in water, , drained
- 2 ribs celery, , chopped
- 1/4 cup red onion, , chopped
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- dried dill weed, , to taste, optional
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, , to taste
Instructions
- Cook noodles according to package instructions, until al dente. Drain.
- In a large bowl add chopped onion and celery, peas, cooked pasta, and drained tuna.
- In a separate bowl, mix the mayo and Greek yogurt.
- Stir half of the sauce into the pasta mixture and toss to evenly coat. Season with salt and pepper and dried dil, to taste.
- Refrigerate pasta and remaining sauce separately, covered, for 30 min. Stir in remaining sauce and serve immediately.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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I originally shared this recipe in June 2011. Updated May 2018.
Have you tried this recipe?!
RATE and COMMENT below! I would love to hear your experience.
This is the easiest, most classic version of the tuna pasta salads. Don’t omit the dill weed, either fresh or dried. It’s delicious!!! Thank you!
Your Tuna Pasta Salad is absolutely delicious every time and a go-to for me! This salad is like a “party in your mouth”! Thank you for sharing it! I even add hard boiled eggs sometimes and a little Mayo too! A definite 5STAR recipe! I have made it with elbows and little farfalle. Both pastas go well with the recipe ingredients. And sometimes I use old Bay seasoning to add a little spice to the mix! Never fails!
I have never made a tuna pasta salad in my life but was looking for quick meals to take to work and saw this. It is absolutely delicious and only took me a few minutes to prep.
Looked for a real good tuna pasta salad and I found it here.
This Tuna Pasta Salad is fantastic, tasted delicious as well as healthy! Love the idea of mixing the non fat greek yougurt with the mayonnaise, it really does make the dressing more creamy and rich!! The only thing I added was lemon….I had a half of lemon left over from the night before and squeezed it into the dressing, wallah! Delicioso! So good, plan on sharing this with all my BFF’s. Thank you!!
No lemon is great I do that and brown mustard Dijon or spicy brown it makes it perfect
Great pasta salad…’this recipe is the best… sometimes I add chopped radishes & sweet or dill relish… in the past I wasn’t able to make pasta salad For a meal.. but now I look forward to it!!!
So yummy and refreshing on a hot summer night!
So, this was great! I didn’t have peas, so I chopped up some English cucumber and some radishes. I really didn’t have high hopes for the dressing/seasonings, but it was fantastic. Thank you
It’s the celery that makes it a winner .
Great, easy recipe. Made as is except cut mayo and yogurt in half (so 1/4c of each). Glad I did, was creamy enough with that! Also only had tricolor pasta on hand- was great!
My husband and I loved this recipe. At this time, when we have to be quarantined, we’re trying to find different recipes of all types. Tonight, we had the ingredients for this recipe. I’ll definitely make this again, and possibly add a few ingredients of my own to change it up. Thank you for sharing.
Lorena and Dan
I’ve never liked pasta salad, I always thought cold pasta with mayonnaise was weird, but my boyfriend begged me to make him a pasta salad for his work lunches. I’d never made one so I searched and found this recipe, I had all the ingredients so I tried it. Now I make it every week and double it so I can have some too. I think it’s the yoghurt that makes it so delicious and creamy without being over the top.
So I’ve tried it like this and it’s yummy. Second time around I doubt led the recipe, left out the cheese and added half cup of ranch dressing and 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese. It really kicked it up! So good!
Just tried, so easy, creamy and delicious!!
Very good! Added more onion and some broccoli.