the best easy italian pasta sala

by megansmeals in Comments Off

Meet your new summer bestie:

A stupidly easy Italian pasta salad with rotini, juicy tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, red onion, salami, olives, herbs, and a drench of quick homemade Italian dressing.

If you want to know what I’ve eaten for 4 of my last 5 meals, it’s THIS SUMMER ESSENTIAL. We are kind of having a moment here.

In my mind, a nice classic pasta salad serves one of two scenarios:

  • Attending a picnic, potluck, or other end-of-summer-everyone-bring-something type party;
  • Addressing the leftover meat, cheese, and vegetables in my fridge and making them into a meal that I pretty much want to eat 24/7.

This pasta salad will do both for ya.

HOW DO YOU MAKE PASTA SALAD?

Do you have two and a half seconds? Cool.

You will need:

Just… some stuff.

It’s very flexible. These are my favorite pasta salad mix-ins:

Good, spicy salami. Yummy cheeses. Tomatoes or some other friendly non-threatening vegetable. Greens of some sort – even if it’s just fresh parsley. Olives and red onions and pepperoncini.

Also, we need pasta with good solid texture and shape to absorb all the sauce. I like rotini. (Also, DeLallo! It’s our favorite. The semi-rough texture is unrivaled for sauce-soakage. I get mine at Target or Cub Foods.)

WHAT ABOUT A PASTA SALAD DRESSING?

Thank you for asking. This is important.

We need a tangy Italian dressing.

Homemade, in a blender or food processor, so it takes approximately 60 seconds. You made that Italian dressing, you pasta salad boss, you. ♡

Final step:

Toss together, taste and adjust, and exercise every self-control muscle in your body so as not to eat the whole thing before everyone comes over.

May I offer one last tidbit of advice? You do not need to wait to be invited to a picnic or potluck to get some pasta salad magic in your life.

This is a weeknight’s dream meal.

Stop at the store on the way home and pick up some good salami and cheese, some olives, and a few fresh herbs. Cook up some pasta, toss it all together, and voila. Cold pasta salad + a glass of rose for dinner, and colder pasta salad as leftovers for lunch all week.

I will be over in a flash.