This creamy mayo and sour cream sauce with its magical sprinkling of vinegar and sugar makes this the most delicious pasta salad this chef has ever tasted – and it’s yours in 20 minutes flat!
There’s always that dish that makes kids try new vegetables and discover them to be ‘dee-licious’. When I was just eight years old and hadn’t even ventured to try a salad with ranch dressing yet, it was my mother’s fresh spinach, red onion, and mandarin orange salad with this amazing sour cream, vinegar, and sugar sauce that got me eating a. salad, b. onions, and c. not just spinach, but raw spinach.
Then, my mind just opened, and I was willing to try everything Mom suggested I might like from there on out – from escargot to aspic to Roquefort salad dressing. Then it was on – my whole culinary journey into food, books about food, writing about food, and cooking food that landed me right here, writing for you today.
Why You’ll Need Some Index Cards for Parties…
Take this to any gathering and you’re going to be approached by many guests who’ll want this recipe. If it’s not on hand, you’ll get phone calls. Take printed copies and save yourself some to-dos.
This salad is so uniquely delicious because it combines so many complementary and contrasting textures and flavors that after one bite, you must have another just to figure out what this heavenly concoction could possibly be.
Sweet cherry tomatoes just bursting on the tongue against that tender rotini just cloaked in vinegary-creamy sauce. Then you have that delicious surprise of peas, against the refreshing, slightly bitter taste of cucumbers, and that sharp zing of the red onions – you have flavor magic right there. That amazing sauce has this magic power of transforming all it touches into something new and exciting. It’s like you’ve never really tasted a red onion till it’s been tasted in this sauce. For me, this sauce has enabled me to enjoy a whole world of vegetables I thought I’d never like, like radishes. Now, I get to enjoy a much more multi-colored rainbow of vegetables.
So, be prepared to be amazed when your kids ask for seconds of something with onions in it….because this Creamy Pasta Salad shares that same succulent sauce that cast its spell on me as a child and got me trying vegetables I thought only adults ate.
What Kids Think About This Creamy Pasta Salad (Words From the Mouths of Babes)
I’m cooking for a new family. The mother, Brooke, is a mesmerizing beauty who has a daughter, Ellie, who is a tow-headed, blonde little doll of cuteness with a smile that lights up her face from ear to ear, and their son, Magnus, who’s currently rereading the whole Harry Potter series. Magnus takes after his computer-genius father, Jeremiah, who invents advanced AI technologies and is actually working on ways to use AI to enhance the flavors of food – so we have endless things to talk about. Fascinating…
I made this pasta salad for Brooke’s mother’s b-day party yesterday, and even three-year-old Ellie “love-love-love[d]” as she put it. So did seven-year-old Magnus, who wanted thirds. I had to go back across the street and make more. I haven’t had to look far for clients since moving to Avon, Indiana. As soon as I took a few slices of my triple-layered, homemade birthday cake (a butter cake with real buttercream frosting and a creme fraîche and raspberry jelly filling) to three neighbors right across the street, I had three new families to cook for. And now, I’m a busy chef and writer again, and so happily so.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces rotini pasta
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/2 cup red bell pepper, diced
- 1/2 cup cucumber, diced
- 1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Prep time – 10 minutes
Cooking time – 10 minutes
Yields – 8 servings
Step 1: Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.
Step 2: In a large bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, sour cream, white wine vinegar, sugar, garlic powder, and dried parsley until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Step 3: Add the cooked pasta, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, cucumber, red onion, and thawed peas to the bowl with the dressing.
Step 4: Toss everything together until the pasta and vegetables are well coated with the creamy dressing.
Step 5: Cover and refrigerate the pasta salad for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to meld together.
Step 6: Before serving, give the pasta salad a good stir and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve chilled.
FAQs & Tips
How to Make Ahead and Store?
You can very much make this the night before a get-together and it will be even more delicious the next day because that sauce both preserves and marinates – creating a flavor that will only deepen overnight. In fact, this pasta salad will taste delicious refrigerated for 3 days, if it lasts that long. You cannot freeze this particular dish though.
Delicious Add-In Ideas…
Oh yes. You can make this even more of a take on a Greek salad, which it is. They use a lot of vinegar and cream sauces in their dishes. So try some black or green olives, jarred or fresh. Maybe roast those red peppers before adding them in and a sprinkling of feta or goat’s cheese atop this would also be yummy.
How Can I Make This Vegan?
Well, sour cream and eggs make this not vegan-friendly given mayo comes from eggs and sour cream, cows. But you could easily make it vegan and still just as delicious as this with two specific products I know of: Violife’s Just Like Sour Cream and JUST Mayo (Whole Foods still has this). Both are the closest imitations I’ve found through extensive sampling.
Serving Suggestions
This pasta salad is great in the winter with spicy dishes and in the summer with barbecue. Or just any old time you need an amazing, nutritious 20-min side dish that makes the whole family nod, smile, and take another bite. I make this the night before and put on my Slow Cooker Beer BBQ Chicken. That salad with that chicken is sheer heaven and I have little to do but sit back and wait for the deliciousness.
Magnus and Ellie love this pasta salad with this guaranteed kid-pleaser: Banana Split Crepes, which are so good, they tell me, that they want enough of these next time for breakfast and dessert. And lunch dessert. If you love this recipe, try this Amish Cucumber Salad, with a similar sauce.
Creamy Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 8 ounces rotini pasta
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes halved
- 1/2 cup red bell pepper diced
- 1/2 cup cucumber diced
- 1/4 cup red onion finely chopped
- 1/2 cup frozen peas thawed
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.
- In a large bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, sour cream, white wine vinegar, sugar, garlic powder, and dried parsley until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the cooked pasta, cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, cucumber, red onion, and thawed peas to the bowl with the dressing.
- Toss everything together until the pasta and vegetables are well coated with the creamy dressing.
- Cover and refrigerate the pasta salad for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to meld together.
- Before serving, give the pasta salad a good stir and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serve chilled.
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