This Pasta Salad will satisfy your cravings for cold pasta loaded with your favorite Greek salad veggies and just enough Italian dressing to make it scrumptious.
The Greeks really know how to eat. I love all their dishes. Give me a salad made with tomatoes, olives and a heady cheese mixed with pasta any day, and I’ll eat it up right now.
This pasta salad is made so delicious with savory, salty, Parmesan cheese, cool, refreshing cucumbers, the sweet explosion of cherry tomatoes, and the tangy zing of that red onion against those dark, salty black olives. Then there’s the springy, tender rotini pasta, which helps all the zesty wonder of Italian dressing to cling to every bite. So, like, yeah. This is one good pasta salad.
Pasta salads are a delicious fun way to complement so many meals, and kids love the play factor involved in eating rotini pasta because it’s springy and fun… like Slinkies.
Pasta Salad: A Feast of Complementing Flavors
Pasta salad is such a fascinating medley of flavors that it complements a long list of main courses. This particular pasta salad, one drenched in Italian dressing, has a sweet-salty-umami-tangy flavor profile that helps it complement sweet and tangy foods or to make a very savory dish shine in contrast. It’s a great way to round out a meal.
If I’m serving some Oven-Roasted Fried Chicken, for example, that tender rotini pasta just drenched in Italian dressing makes the perfect side dish to accentuate the savory, spicy, crunchy chicken skin all loaded with its spicy flavors.
It’s wonderful with a good barbecue of any kind. I absolutely love it with this amazing recipe for Oven Roasted Barbecued Chicken which uses a sauce made from peach preserves mixed with barbecue sauce, hot sauce, garlic, and olive oil. What’s not to savor here? I mean, we’re talking super-delicious fruity-tangy-spicy-sweet flavor-town. And the unique flavors in this pasta salad, like the salty umami of that cheese, the cool cucumbers, and bright, fresh tomato flavors, play perfectly against the flavors in that peachy-sweet and zesty barbecue sauce.
Pasta salad is such a light dish that it’s perfect for those filling, tasty main dishes we all love that need a very light side to avoid stuffing all who eat it beyond the ability for dessert point. Let’s say you’re having Stuffed Buffalo Chicken Breasts, which are baked chicken breasts that are stuffed with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, Buffalo sauce, and crispy bacon. You want something savory, light, and cool to complement all that delicious savory spice and heat. What’s better than a cool, tangy pasta salad then, to provide the perfect complement to such a hearty dish? In fact, with all that tender pasta and sweet, tangy sauce, it’s more flavor and texture appropriate than a green salad would be here.
How to Make Ahead and Store
Fortunately, you will not have leftovers of this long because it’s irresistibly delicious. So eat this up before 2 days after serving. Unfortunately, pasta salads of all kinds do not freeze well. Cooked pasta simply doesn’t hold up well in the freezer, which is why all the ready-made-pastas are in the refrigerated section of the store (those that haven’t been frozen in, say, a Lean Cuisine with the magic that is preservatives).
Serving Suggestions
This pasta salad goes great with these Buffalo Chicken Sliders and with some of these Air Fryer Crispy Onion Rings to smack right on top of that sandwich – yummy. For dessert, this delicious Vanilla Panna Cotta with Balsamic Strawberries will pair so nicely with both dishes. And yes, kids adore it because it tastes like a vanilla pudding that just floats on the tongue. If you love this recipe, you will adore this recipe for Pizza Pasta Salad and this unique and amazing Orecchiette Pasta Salad with Tomatoes, White Beans, and Spinach.
Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 1 pound rotini or fusilli pasta
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes halved
- 1 medium cucumber diced
- 1 red bell pepper diced
- 1/2 cup red onion finely chopped
- 1/2 cup black olives sliced
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped
- 1/2 cup Italian dressing
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese grated
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooked pasta, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red bell pepper, red onion, black olives, and fresh parsley.
- Pour the Italian dressing over the pasta mixture and toss until all the ingredients are well coated.
- Season with salt and black pepper to taste, then sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
- Chill in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to meld together. Serve cold or at room temperature.
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