Our Favorite Pasta Salad

This pasta salad is a gluten free, dairy free makeover of one of my favorite childhood side dishes. Whether you have food intolerances or not, this is a good one! 

Pasta salad was one of my favorite foods when I was really little. My mom made it with tricolor rotini and used an Italian dressing loaded with parmesan cheese (yum!), and always included tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, and bell peppers (I didn’t appreciate the bell peppers until I got older).

Her version has changed over the years. These days, you’re likely to find bits of fresh mozzarella, marinated artichoke hearts and other goodies tucked into her pasta salad. It’s always beautiful and colorful.

It was one of those things I really missed when we went gluten and dairy free. I only get a hankering for it a few times a year, but when I do, I want a version loaded with goodies and pulled together with a delicious dressing.

This is it.

I hope you’re not feeling misled by the title since, as you read through the recipe you’ll see that this is more of a method than a strict amounts recipe. The big reason for that is that I find pasta salad is a happy home for a lot of different add-ins, and everyone has his or her own preference when it comes to the goodies-to-pasta ratio.

I tend to favor a lot of goodies. There are SO many different things you can add to these salad. Try slow-roasted tomatoes instead of fresh ones, roasted red peppers for the peperoncinis, or white beans instead of pepperoni or salami. The beauty is that you can make it sliiiightly different each time. We make it vegan on a regular basis, and before our diet was changed, we loved adding little bits of cheese.

I like a combination of crunchy fresh veggies (like cucumbers or bell peppers), with the soft noodles, and the mixture of deep flavors like sun-dried tomatoes with the brightness of peperoncinis. It’s a pretty straight-forward method, but here are some highlights you should know…

Notes on the recipe:

DRESSING. Any bottle Italian or balsamic dressing will work beautifully here. I love the convenience of bottled dressing, and there are some delicious ones out there, but I often make homemade dressing to go with it (since I never remember to pick up a bottle of dressing when I’m at the grocery store). Our favorite homemade dressing for pasta salad is this amazing Lemon Basil Vinaigrette. It’s so fresh and bright.

PASTA. Our favorite gluten free pasta for pasta salad is the corn & rice kind. I’ve found that the brown rice and quinoa pastas we enjoy so much for warm dishes don’t stay soft enough for a cold salad. (If you’re not gluten free, you choose your favorite!)

SHAPES. At our local stores I can only find a few shapes of the corn/rice pasta, so penne it is. My heart will always be fondest of rotini, since I find the noodles are easier to spear and, well, my mom always used rotini. The good news is that I just found that Amazon carries GF rotini for a great price, so I may or may not have just placed a bulk order. You can choose your favorite shape!

HIGH QUALITY ADD-INS. If you’re looking for a shorter/cleaner ingredients list for your add-ins, our favorite brand for things like jarred roasted red peppers, kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and dye-free peperoncinis is Jeff’s Naturals. I get their products at Sprouts. (This isn’t paid or sponsored in any way, just sharing what we love).

Like this post? You might also like…

• Italia Salad with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette
• What to Make When it’s Too Hot to Cook
• Perfect Paleo Meatballs

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