Pasta salad is a salad whose main ingredient is cooked pasta, which is usually accompanied by finely cut vegetables in a vinaigrette (or any other sauce based on mayonnaise). This type of salad is usually served cold, so it is usually occur in the hot summer months. In addition, pasta salads are a classic that does not go out of style and allows combinations for all tastes. In places like the United States, it is a very common salad in the so-called Salad bar.
Check out this simple and easy to make Italian Pasta Salad recipe!
Italian Pasta Salad
4
servings30
minutes10
minutesPasta salad is a classic and we totally love it in our family.
Today I’m showing you an easy version of pasta salad that includes a homemade Italian dressing.
Ingredients
- Pasta
1 pound rotini pasta
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
8 ounces fresh mini mozzarella cheese balls, halved
1/2 – 1 cup sliced olives
1 cup mini pepperonis
1/2 cup pepperonicinis, roughly chopped
1/2 red onion, diced
- Italian Dressing
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Directions
- To start you’ll need to bring a large pot of water to a boil on the stove.
- Cook 1 pound of rotini pasta according to the package directions.
- Once it finishes cooking you’ll want to drain the pasta from the water and run it under cold water to cool the pasta off.
- Cut the tomatoes and mozzarella in half.
- Italian Dressing
- In a bowl, add 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil.
- Add 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar.
- Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.
- Add 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning.
- Add 1 teaspoon of sugar.
- Add 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder.
- Add a pinch of red pepper flakes.
- Whisk this all together.
- Now our pasta should be about done so we can just pour that in directly with our dressing.
- It actually saves us some dishes to make our dressing directly in the bowl we’re going to put our pasta into.
- Add the cheese, tomatoes, sliced black olives, red dice onion, 1 cup of mini pepperonis and chopped peperoncinis.
- Stir this together.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour before serving.
- Your Italian Pasta Salad!
