This Italian Pasta Salad recipe has tender pasta, crisp bell peppers in a variety of colors. Juicy sweet tomatoes, a creamy mozzarella cheese, and salty salami. All tossed in a sweet Italian dressing for a simple and perfect side dish.
This pasta salad recipe along with my Seafood Pasta has to be one of my go-to recipes to bring along to any summer gathering.
Italian Pasta Salad is made to feed a crowd so it's perfect for summer cookouts.
Making this salad is so much fun because it's loaded with so many great colorful ingredients. Plus it's bursting with bold flavors like the crisp bell peppers. Or the creamy mozzarella cheese, or how about that salty salami.
Tips For Making Italian Pasta Salad
We love sharing helpful tips for our recipes, here are some tips to make making this Italian Pasta Salad easy to make.
Cut your vegetables small~ Make sure to cut the veggies into small bitesize pieces. This way you can get more ingredients in every bite. For this salad, I used grape tomatoes that I quartered into bitesize pieces.
Black Olive ~ For the black olives, I only had whole olives in the pantry. You could either quarter them or do as I did and cut them into thin slices.
Since I'm not a big olive fan I didn't add many olives to my salad. However, if you like olives then you may want to add more than I did.
Bell Peppers ~ Having multiple color bell peppers gives more color to your salad. Plus the different bell peppers will bring different flavors to the salad. Red bell peppers are sweeter whereas the green bell pepper is slightly bitter.
The Pasta ~ Cook the pasta according to the back of the package. Make sure the pasta is completely cooled before adding it in with the other ingredients.
What I like to do is strain the pasta from the hot water. Add cold water back into the pot along with the pasta. This helps to cool the pasta down.
For The Dressing ~ To make this a quick and simple recipe I used a bottle of Italian Salad dressing. My favorite is the Olive Garden brand.
With all the ingredients chopped and the pasta cooled add the salad dressing into the pasta salad. Mixing everything well to get a nice coat of the dressing on all the ingredients.
Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving. This will allow enough time for the flavors to marinate together.
This pasta salad will hold up in the refrigerator for several days.
Ingredient Substitutions
The pasta ~ I used plain rotini pasta. However, you could also use tri-color rotini pasta. The tri-color pasta would add even more color to this recipe.
Meat ~ If you are not of fan of salami you could use pepperoni. I liked the saltiness that the salami gives to the salad. I feel that prosciutto would also be great meat to use in this pasta salad.
Mozzarella Cheese ~ Mozzarella cheese gives this salad a little creaminess and complements all the ingredients well. I used a block of Kraft mozzarella cheese. You could use fresh mozzarella cut into bitesize pieces or even the mozzarella balls.
Dressing ~ I used Olive Garden's signature Italian dressing. However, you could use any Italian vinaigrette you like or even make a homemade dressing. We really like the taste of the Olive Garden's signature dressing.
I also only used 1 cup of the dressing so there wasn't an overpowering dressing flavor. If you would like more dressing I would recommend adding 2 cups.
This is a great recipe to take along to any summer gather. I also like to make this for long weekends, because it holds up well in the refrigerator for serval days.
Just make sure to store it in a sealed container. This will help to ensure it last for up to 5 days in the fridge.
It makes a great side dish recipe to go along with just about any meat or just for a quick lunch idea.
Answering the question "what's there to eat" ~ Jen
Keep scrolling for the full printable recipe.
Other My Creative Manner recipes you may enjoy are:
- Macaroni Salad
- Instant Pot Mac and Cheese
- Grilled Chicken Kabobs
- Fruit Salad Recipe
- Peanut Butter Cookies
Italian Pasta Salad
This Italian Pasta Salad recipe has tender pasta, crisp bell peppers in a variety of colors. Juicy sweet tomatoes, a creamy mozzarella cheese, and salty salami. All tossed in a sweet Italian dressing for a simple and perfect side dish.
Ingredients
- 16 Ounces Rotini Pasta Or Tricolor rotini pasta
- ½ Green Bell Pepper diced
- ½ Orange Bell Pepper diced
- ½ Red Bell Pepper diced
- 1 Pint Grape Tomatoes quartered
- ¼ Cup Sliced Black Olives
- 4 Ounces Mozzarella Cheese cubed
- ⅓ Cup Red Onion diced
- 8 ounces Salami chopped
- 1 Cup Olive Garden Signature Italian Dressing See notes
- ⅓ Cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
- 3 Tablespoon Parsley see notes
- ⅓ Teaspoon Italian Seasoning
- ⅓ Teaspoon Salt
- ⅓ Teaspoon Black Pepper
Instructions
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In a large pot cook pasta until it's al dente according to the package directions. When cooking is finished rinse under cold water.
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In a large bowl combine all the ingredients, add dressing and toss to coat.
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Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
Recipe Notes
For the dressing ~ If you like extra dressing add 2 cups
For the Parsley ~ you can use either dried or fresh. If fresh it needs to be chopped fine.
The nutritional value may vary depending on the ingredients used.
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