Our top cold pasta salad recipes
There’s everything from the Italian style classic to Greek, macaroni, tuna, and taco salad. Along with top recipes from this website, we’re featuring selections from some favorite recipe developers from around the web.
Boil the pasta a few minutes less than indicated on the package instructions. Often package instructions make for overcooked pasta. Start taste testing early. Start taste testing and stop cooking when the pasta is just tender but you can still see a small white speck inside.
5 from 1 review
1 pound fusilli spiral pasta (or any short-cut pasta like penne, bowties, etc) 1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced in half 1 green bell pepper, diced 1/4 red onion, sliced ½ cup chopped fresh herbs (basil and parsley or dill) ¾ cup black or green olives, sliced ¾ cup sliced pepperoncini or banana peppers 6 ounces small mozzarella cheese balls (Ciliegine) ¾ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
For the dressing**
⅓ cup white wine vinegar 1 tablespoon granulated sugar 1 teaspoon each dried dill, oregano, and garlic powder 1 teaspoon kosher salt ¼ cup olive oil ¼ cup neutral oil (like organic vegetable or grapeseed***) Fresh ground black pepper
**In a rush? Substitute ¾ cup Italian dressing or your purchased vinaigrette dressing of choice for the homemade dressing. ***Using neutral oil in a pasta salad helps leftovers keep in the fridge: if you use only olive oil, it clumps up after about 1 day of storage. You can use 100% olive oil if you prefer.
