To a large pot of salted boiling water, add the pasta. Boil the pasta for the time indicated on the package plus one minute. When pasta is served cold, it’s a bit tougher so cooking it a bit longer (by 1-2 minutes) is recommended for pasta salads. Drain and reserve about 2 tablespoons of pasta water.

Toss the cooked and drained pasta with half the pesto and the reserved 2 tablespoons of pasta water. The pasta will absorb the pesto better when warm. Then, set it aside to cool down.

Cut the baby tomatoes in half.

Chop the sun-dried tomatoes roughly.

Cut the mozzarella in bite-sized pieces or if you’re using small mozzarella balls, cut them in half.

Zest the lemon and squeeze 1 tbsp of fresh lemon juice.

Toast the pine nuts and set them aside to cool down. To toast them, simply put them in a dry pan over medium-low heat, moving them around in the pan for a few minutes until they get some color on them.

Once the pasta has cooled down, toss all the ingredients together: the pesto pasta, halved baby tomatoes, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, bite-sized mozzarella pieces, toasted (and cooled) pine nuts, the remaining pesto, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Note that if you don’t wait for the pasta to cool down, the mozzarella will melt slightly.

Taste the pasta salad and add salt and pepper (to taste). I used 1/2 tsp of sea salt flakes (Maldon) and 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper. You can use kosher salt instead of sea salt flakes. If using regular salt, use half the amount of kosher salt or sea salt flakes.