Italian Pasta Salad is one of our favorite pasta salad recipes. This is an easy, make-ahead salad that is perfect for meal prep. Every bite is loaded with rotini, salami, mozzarella, olives, healthy veggies, and a homemade creamy Italian Dressing.
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Pasta Salad Ingredients:
Italian Pasta Salad is a meal in itself with protein, grains and plenty of vegetables. It has vibrant Italian flavors with kalamata olives, fresh mozzarella cheese, salami, and parsley.
We love that you can change up the ingredients based on what you have on hand. Try substituting with diced bell pepper, or crunchy broccoli, or use Feta instead of Mozarella cheese to add some Greek flavors. P.S. If you’re feeling adventurous, roasting your own bell peppers will take this salad to the next level.
What is the Best Italian Dressing?
We love homemade Italian dressing for the best flavor and because you can use high-quality oil and seasonings. In a pinch, store-bought Italian dressings will work. We like Newman’s Own brand Italian dressing and Ken’s brand Italian dressing.
How to Make Pasta Salad Video Tutorial:
I hope this Pasta Salad Recipe becomes a new favorite for you. It makes meal prep so easy! If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our Youtube Channel and click the bell icon so you get a notification when we post a new video.
What is the Best Pasta for Salad?
We love rotini noodles for pasta salad. Rotini is the spiral-shaped pasta you will see in the photos here. You can buy them in the traditional pasta color or in a multicolor blend which can be really fun for a pasta salad. You can also experiment with different kinds of pasta such as shell pasta or macaroni.
How to Cook Pasta for Pasta Salad:
Cook your pasta in salted water according to package instructions until it is aldenté. Aldente means firm to the bite. Pasta that is overcooked can seem mushy in pasta salad and will absorb more dressing so make sure you don’t overcook. As soon as the pasta is aldenté, drain in a colander then rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process, chill the pasta, and rinse off excess starch to keep the pasta from sticking.
Cook’s Tip: Buttered pasta doesn’t work well for pasta salad so do not add butter or oil after your pasta is cooked. Rinsing in cold water is enough to prevent noodles from sticking together and there is plenty of oil in the salad dressing.
More Pasta Salad Recipes:
- Creamy Avocado Pasta Salad
- Caesar Pasta Salad
- Chicken Orzo Pasta Salad
- Cucumber Cauliflower Ditalini Pasta Salad
Italian Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 8 oz rotini pasta
- 6 oz salami, sliced into strips
- 10 oz cherry tomatoes, halved (3 cups)
- 1/2 English cucumber, diced
- 1/2 medium red onion, finely diced
- 8 oz fresh mozzarella, pearls or halved mozzarella balls
- 1/2 cup black olives, pitted and sliced
- 1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted and halved
- 1/2 cup roasted red peppers* drained and coarsely chopped
- 1/3 cup parsley, finely chopped
- 1 cup Italian dressing, or added to taste
Instructions
- Cook rotini pasta according to package instructions in salted water just until pasta is aldente (firm to the bite).
- While pasta cooks, prep remaining ingredients and make Italian Dressing.
- Add dressing just to the portion fo salad you plan to eat. Enjoy right away or cover and let the salad marinate for 1-3 hours before serving.
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
I’ll keep you posted! Your GREAT!
I hope you love this recipe, Donald!
I make a lot of your recipes! Sometimes I add a little of this and not so much of that. but all in all your recipes are GREAT!!! Thank YOU!!
You are very welcome, Donald! Feel free to personalize it and add some ingredients according to your preference. Most of my recipes, except for baking I think are versatile!
I make this recipe a lot! Everyone loves it! Thanks alot!!
I’m so glad you all enjoyed this recipe!!
This pasta salad is a crowd pleaser! A perfect summer side dish.
It sure is! I can’t wait to make it again! Thank you for this lovely comment.
I have made several of your salads they are amazing I’m making this one tonight
I hope you love this and other recipes that you will try, Jennifer!
how far ahead of time can you make this salad? and if i wanted to make it for a large group can i just double or triple the ingredients?
Hi Annamarie, we’ve always enjoyed it fresh, but the dressing will last up to a week in the fridge.
Love this recipe. I have found that soaking the chopped onions in dressing ahead softens the flavor of the onions and at the same time adds the extra flavor to the dressing. I usually do this the night before I make the salad. Great flavor and the kids don’t fuss about the raw onions.
Hi Kathleen, thank you for your good review and tips! That is helpful, I’ll try that next time.
I making this recipe and it calls for 1 cup of dressing for 8oz of pasta but the recipe for the dressing doesn’t come out to a cup ???
Hi Dorothy, that is correct. If you change the servings in the recipe, you can easily scale it up or down in the ingredient list. I hope that helps. Also, we often use store-bought salad dressing and it works great. We linked to homemade dressing as an option.
I made it tonight And followed it exactly . I didn’t have white wine vinegar, and had distilled white vinegar . Still delicious. I added marinated artichokes hearts . Thanks you ! Love all your recipes . I’m sharing half with my daughter .
I’m glad you loved this recipe, thanks for sharing that with us!
Yummy!! What scrapper do you use? Thank you.
Hi Lynn, We use the OXO Stainless Steel Good Grips Multi-Purpose Scraper. You can find it and our favorite kitchen tools in our Amazon Affiliate Shop HERE. The scraper is under the kitchen tools section.
Thank you! Love your recipes and your bubbly personality!
Aww, thank you for that wonderful compliment, Lynn! I’m so happy you’re enjoying our recipes. `
Can I use less pasta ?
Hi Anely, yes you can. This recipe is so versatile you can adjust it according to your preference.
Natasha,
You asked for a tip about how to cut a lot of cherry tomatoes at once. This lid method works great:
How to Cut Cherry Tomatoes (and Grapes, Cherries, & Olives)
Cherry tomatoes (or grapes, pitted cherries, or pitted olives) of uniform size
2 flat plastic container lids with rims
Serrated knife (blade must be at least as long as the plastic lid diameter)
Directions
On plastic lid with rim side up, place cherry tomatoes in a single layer. Place a second lid on top of the tomatoes with the rim side down. With one hand, hold & press firmly but gently on top of the lid to hold the tomatoes in place (not so hard that you squash them). With your other hand, cut the tomatoes horizontally through the gap between the two lids. Remove the top lid, and the tomatoes should all be cut in half.
Use the same procedure for cutting grapes, pitted olives, or pitted cherries.
Sandi
Hello Sandi, that is awesome, thank you so much for sharing this info with us!
This was amazing and pretty simple. I subbed the salami for some pre-cooked chicken, still turned out great. Dressing was perfect! As always, thank you for another great recipe!
I’m so happy you enjoyed that, Emily! Thank you for sharing that with me!
Hi Natasha,
After trying many great great recipes of yours, I am planning to make tomorrow the Italian Pasta Salad and I am curious to find out what Salami you are using?
Thank you so much for your incredible recipes, videos and explanations. You are wonderful! ❤
I hope you love this recipe, Ale. I usually prefer genoa salami.
Very good salad! I tried it before with a store bought Italian dressing and it was alright, a bit too sour. But today I made it with the homemade Italian dressing on site and it was amazing!
I’m glad you loved it, Olga. Thanks for your awesome feedback!
This pasta salad was such a hit. Everyone loved it. I substituted the red onion for green onions and left out the kalamata olives because my grandkids are picky. I was sure they would pick out something in this salad but I really wanted to make it and they loved it. What a hit. And I made the Italian dressing too and it was fabulous. Thank you, Natasha.
You’re welcome, Carol! I’m so happy you all enjoyed this!
I didn’t have the mozzarella balls and I don’t eat salami so I tried this recipe vegetarian, and it was really delicious! Will be a staple in my house now 💕 thanks a bunch Natasha, big fan of all your recipes!
I’m so glad this worked for you! Thank you for sharing that with us!
Hi Natasha do you have a link for your salad bowl?
Thanks, love your recipes!
We have it linked in our Amazon shop.
I couldn’t find the bowl on the Amazon link you provided😕
Hi Kim, it’s this bowl here.
Hello, can you tell me what food scraper you use or provide a link?
Thank you.
Hi Rosa, we have it linked in our Amazon Shop HERE.
Hi, Natasha…love your recipes and love watching you demonstrate them. However, I noticed a couple of errors on the recipe for the Italian Pasta Salad and Italian Dressing.
1. Salad: you have an asterisk attached to the roasted red peppers but there is no reference below explaining why you called it to our attention.
2. Dressing: Sea Salt…you show 3/4 fine sea salt. Is it the measurement a teaspoon?
Please advise. Thank you!
Hi Helene, thank you so much for pointing that out. It is 3/4 tsp salt and I meant to hyperlink instructions on how to roast peppers if you wanted a homemade version. I have updated the recipes and thank you again.