This Easy Pasta Salad is the perfect simple & delicious side dish to make for lunch, dinner or any fun occasion. I love making it in the Spring and Summer months when vegetables are ripe and you need a low maintenance, quick & easy vegetable option to go with your meal. A simple salad that only includes 8 ingredients that you can make anytime is always a win in my book!
Pasta Salad Ingredients
The ingredients for this pasta salad recipe are so simple, healthy and fresh!
- Pasta - A full box of your favorite pasta cooked according to the package instructions.
- Bell Peppers - I like using a combination of green and red bell peppers for this salad, but you can certainly use yellow or orange if you like.
- Cucumber - Grab a large cucumber, wash and dice. The english cucumbers work really well too.
- Tomatoes - You can use any tomatoes you want. I usually grab 2 regular tomatoes on the vine, but Roma tomatoes or grape tomatoes would work just as well.
- Onion - A small to medium size yellow or red onion diced finely.
- Salad seasoning - This may be considered the star of the show. It’s what gives this pasta salad a TON of flavor. I like using the McCormick Salad Supreme seasoning brand.
- Italian dressing - It wouldn’t be a pasta salad without salad dressing. You can either make your own Italian dressing or you can buy a bottle of your favorite dressing from the store. I typically just grab a bottle of my favorite at the store to make this a super easy and quick recipe.
What Pasta Should You Use?
I often times switch up the pasta that I use depending on what mood I’m in lol! But the great thing about this recipe is that you can almost use whichever kind you want. Spaghetti pasta is what my mom always used, but I also like using Rotini pasta as well. I’ve even experimented with veggie pasta made with different colors and that worked too! Just make sure you cook it according to the package instructions and let it cool before adding your veggies. You can give it a quick rinse with cool water to stop the cooking process after you drain it.
More Easy Summer Recipes
- Strawberry Salad
- Easy Skillet Zucchini & Yellow Squash
- Taco Stuffed Zucchini Boats
- Strawberry Salad
- Strawberry Steel Cut Oatmeal
WATCH ME MAKE IT HERE
Easy Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 2 tomatoes diced
- 1 small or medium yellow or red onion finely diced
- 1 large cucumber chopped
- 1 green bell pepper chopped
- 1 red bell pepper chopped
- 1 16 oz box pasta
- 1 16 oz bottle Italian dressing
- 3-4 tablespoons of McCormick Salad Supreme seasoning
Instructions
- Wash and dice all vegetables.
- Cook pasta according to instructions and let cool.
- Mix all vegetables with cooked pasta, Italian dressing and salad seasoning. Take your time layering the dressing and salad seasoning, this way it spreads evenly throughout the pasta salad.
- You will use the entire bottle of Italian dressing, but roughly only 3 or 4 tablespoons of the salad seasoning (or to taste).
- Refrigerate overnight or at least 6-8 hours so all of the flavors can marinate. Enjoy!
Leave a Reply