a summer favorite: pasta salad!

Pasta salad season is upon us! 
It's one of the most simple, delicious dishes to bring to a cook out or to pack for a day at the beach, and the pasta-bilites are endless! See what I did there? Sorry, had to.

I found my go-to pasta salad recipe at my sister's house, and have tweaked it to make it my own over time. The best part about it is that you can use favorite veggies that you have on hand, and measurements are open to interpretation. There's only one rule: the more color, the better! 

INGREDIENTS

yellow bell pepper

red onion

black olives, pitted

green beans 

cherry tomatoes 

mozzarella pearls 

pepperoni

italian salad dressing

METHOD

ONE.

Cook pasta. Drain and let stand for 5 minutes. 

TWO.

Toss in 1/4 cup italian dressing, allowing pasta to cool to room temperature.

THREE.

Chop bell pepper, onion and green beans into similar-sized pieces. Slice black olives, halve/quarter cherry tomatoes and cube pepperoni into similar sizes pieces as the other veggies. Toss all in with pasta. Add mozzarella pearls to pasta. Mix well! Add more dressing to taste.

So simple, right?! I intentionally left out amounts of each ingredient - the great thing about this pasta salad is that you can choose to go heavy on some ingredients, or do an equal amount of all for a well balanced mix. 

Don't want to play the guessing game? I usually use about 6 handfuls of dry pasta, 3/4 bell pepper, 1/4 onion, 1 handful green beans, 1 small can black olives, 1/2 pint tomatoes, 1/2 container mozzarella pearls, and 1 handful cubed pepperoni.

I've also picked up a few tricks... 

Making it the night before really allows the pasta to take on the flavor of the dressing, but...

To keep the tomatoes from getting mushy, don't add them until a couple hours before you're ready to serve.

With the dressing, less is more. You can always add more, or serve the salad with aside of dressing so people can add their own.

It's all about the noodle shape. 
I'm serious. Pick something that will hold all of the dressing's flavor goodness in its nooks and crannies.

And because you can never have too much of a good thing, here are a few more pasta salad recipes I found that I'm dying to try. 

Zucchini and Oriechetta Pasta Salad with Beans Such a yummy combination of ingredients, and the lemon seems like it would really brighten up all of the flavors.

Cilantro-Lime Pasta Salad Avocado in a pasta salad? Yes please.

Tuna Pasta Salad with Dill & Peas I'm not typically a fan of mayo, but I want to give this a try. I might cut down on the mayo and add some fancy mustard.

Pasta Salad with Feta, Tomato, Kalamata Olives and Sweet Basil Vinaigrette Not only does the vinaigrette sound to-die-for, but I love that there's fresh basil in the mix.


Got any awesome pasta salad recipes or secrets?

xo Emily