Cooking, Recipes, Salads, Side Dishes, Summer

Italian Pasta Salad

Posted by Veronica Miluk on

We do a lot of potlucks at work, which is ironic because my section caters to the Department of Health.  And let me tell you, while our food is scrumptious, it’s usually anything BUT healthy!  Which is just fine by me, because I like to take these opportunities to bake treats and get them the heck out of the house!

But right now, we’re having an abnormal heat wave for June and the AC is broken.  Which means NO running the oven.  Really.  It’s bad enough as it is in the house (Please, please, PLEASE come and fix the AC today Mr. Repairman!)

So I decided to make pasta salad.  It’s easy.  Just have to boil some water for the pasta and throw together the rest of the ingredients, and you’re done.  My favorite kind of pasta salad is Italian.  So I searched the internet for something that looked good, and came across this recipe and figured I’d give it a try.  I wanted to change a little on it as I’m not a huge fan of carrots always and I thought there should be some olives in an Italian pasta salad, but other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe.  And it’s GOOOOOOOOD.

Makes 8 servings.

Ingredients

  • 1 (12 oz.) box tricolor rotini (or your desired pasta)
  • 1 (16 oz.) bottle Zesty Italian Dressing
  • 1 (4-6 oz.) package good Genoa salami, quartered (I made my pieces a little smaller and went with Boar’s Head for quality)
  • 1 red bell pepper, small diced
  • 1 orange bell pepper, small diced
  • 1 yellow bell pepper, small diced
  • 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
  • 1/2 small red onion, diced
  • 1 container of pitted Kalamata olives (about 36 olives)
  • 1 (8 oz.) container mozzarella pearls (found in deli; or small-diced fresh mozzarella)
  • 1 cup fresh curly or flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Directions

  1. Set a large pot of water to boil. Cook pasta according to package directions, usually 7-8 minutes for rotini. Drain and rinse under cold water. Return pasta to pot, away from heat.
  2. Pour in entire bottle of zesty Italian dressing (it may seem like too much at first, but the pasta will soak up a lot of the dressing as it cools). Add remaining ingredients and toss gently to combine.
  3. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve, giving it a good stir before serving to blend ingredients and dressing thoroughly.
Calories 491
Total Fat 28 g
Total Carbohydrates 45 g
    Dietary Fiber 1 g
Protein 14 g