Pasta Salads

This recipe group is listed in Salads

This page will have several pasta salad recipes.

Tri Color Rotini Pasta Salad

With Diced Ham and Bell Peppers

Serving for eighteen

Prep time 2 - 3 hours due to dicing

Things You Need

  • Big salad bowl
  • Pot to boil pasta
  • Cutting board and knife
  • Refrigerator or some way to chill the completed salad
Tri Color Pasta Salad

Ingredients

  • 2 12 oz boxes of Tri Color Rotini
  • 1 1/2 15 oz bottles Zesty (or Robusto) Italian salad dressing
  • 1 14.5 oz can diced/stewed tomatoes Italian Style
  • 1/3 cup chopped onion (1 small)
  • 2 3.8 oz can sliced black olives
  • 5 bell peppers (2 green, 1 yellow or orange, 2 red)
  • 1/3 cup diced cheese (I use 6 of the string cheese)
  • 2/3 to 3/4 lb diced ham (ham steaks are a good thickness)

Directions

  1. Cook then cool pasta
  2. Add the Italian salad dressing, olives, and tomatoes to the cooled pasta and stir
  3. Chill between each addition as it will take a while to dice everything and you want this salad to be cold
  4. Dice and add (in any order) the ham, cheese, onion, and bell peppers mixing between each addition
  5. Cover and chill 6 to 24 hours

Optional

All ingredients and their proportions are optional. If someone does not like onions (or any other ingredient), omit it from your salad.

NOTE: If you need a bigger size than the recipe below, cook two of this size separately. It would be difficult to find a mixing bowl large enough to make the huge batch all at once. It would also be difficult to boil four lbs of pasta in a single pot. We have tried this before and it does not work out well. Two lbs in two separate pots would work better. Also, due to the amount of dicing required, it would be better to make one batch one day and the second batch the next day.

Tri Color Rotini Pasta Salad Party Size

Really big salad with Diced Ham and Bell Peppers. You may want to get help cutting up the ingredients on this one

Serving for twenty four

Prep time 4 hours due to extensive dicing

Things You Need

  • Big salad bowl
  • Pot to boil pasta
  • Cutting board and knife
  • Refrigerator or some way to chill the completed salad
Tri Color Pasta Salad

Ingredients

  • 3 12 oz boxes of Tri Color Rotini
  • 2 15 oz bottles Zesty (or Robusto) Italian salad dressing
  • 1 14.5 oz can diced/stewed tomatoes Italian Style
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
  • 1 6 oz can pitted black olives (I use the small size)
  • 1 3.8 oz can sliced black olives
  • 7 bell peppers (3 green, 2 yellow or orange, 2 red)
  • 1/2 cup diced cheese (I use 8 of the string cheese)
  • 1 lb diced ham (ham steaks are a good thickness)

Directions

  1. Cook then cool pasta
  2. Be sure you are using a huge bowl or pan (at least as big as a punch bowl)
  3. Add the Italian salad dressing, olives, and tomatoes to the cooled pasta and stir
  4. Chill between each addition as it will take a while to dice everything and you want this salad to be cold
  5. Dice and add (in any order) the ham, cheese, onion, and bell peppers mixing between each addition
  6. Cover and chill 6 to 24 hours

Optional

All ingredients and their proportions are optional. If someone does not like onions (or any other ingredient), omit it from your salad.

Chicken Pineapple Pasta Salad

Delicious cool salad, from Barbara (no relation).

Serving for twelve

Prep time 20 minutes

Things You Need

  • Salad bowl
  • Pot to boil pasta
  • Cutting board and knife
  • Refrigerator or some way to chill the completed salad
Chicken Pasta Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 lb small elbow macaroni
  • 1 20 oz can of pineapple chucks (strained but retain the juice)
  • 1 cup diced sweet pickles
  • 2 cups grilled chicken breast (can purchase from Costco, theirs has good flavor)
  • 3 green onions chopped (to your taste)
  • 1 can water chestnuts (chopped)
  • Salt and Pepper to your taste
  • 1 1/2 cup Best Foods mayonnaise

Directions

  1. Make dressing by combining mayonnaise with 1 1/2 cups of the retained pineapple juice and set aside (overnight if you can)
  2. Cook macaroni until tender, then drain and cool
  3. Cut pineapple chunks smaller (or use pineapple tidbits)
  4. Dice sweet pickles
  5. Cut or dice chicken to bit size pieces
  6. Combine all ingredients but the dressing and stir
  7. Pour dressing over combined ingredients
  8. Chill until served

Optional

Add seedless grapes halved.

Increase, decrease, or eliminate green onions to your preference.

If salad seems dry, add more mayonnaise.

Using Sweet Pickle Relish changes the flavor so avoid it if you can. Stick with the diced sweet pickles if at all possible.

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