We really wanted a healthy lunch fast after we came in from a long walk with the doggo. I was also craving sweet gherkins, randomly.  This quick pasta is loaded with healthy veggies which need hardly any prep, and 2 of your five a day! It’s got lots of fibre from the vegetables and the sharpness of the beetroot and gherkins compliments the carby pasta base.

---

Ingredients (serves 2):

250g Fusilli pasta

2 Gherkins, sliced

2 Ready to eat beetroot, sliced

Handful pine nuts

Basil leaves

Vegan margarine or olive oil

Green beans or peas

1 whole spring onion

Green olives

Shredded lettuce to garnish

Nutritional yeast or Parmesan cheese

Method:

First, put some pasta on to boil in salted water.

Heat up a frying pan and toast some green beans, pine nuts, and chopped leeks in lemon juice.

Shred some lettuce and place in the bottom of your bowl.

When the pasta is cooked, drain and toss with olive oil and basil leaves (my basil plant has very few leaves left now! 😦 )

Add the pasta to the lettuce, and then add in the green beans, pine nuts, chopped beetroot, gherkin, and olives. Sprinkle on some some nutritional yeast to add a nutty, cheesy flavour to everything, and it’s full of B vitamins, something we could be eating more of! It comes in a big tub from Holland and Barret for 3-4£. My boyfriend refuses to eat anything with the word ‘yeast’ in the title though, so he had some actual Parmesan.

Et voila! A quick and healthy pasta salad fix