There’s no fare better than Pasta Salad to represent everyday, warm-weather cooking. This recipe, though, is hardly pedestrian: it’s guest-worthy! You’ll be very proud to serve this salad at a picnic, barbecue, or for a casual dinner at home on a leisurely summer evening.

This salad is delightful. I suppose I’ve had pasta salads like this before, but never this good. I’m not kidding. The ingredient list may not seem like a revelation, but it’s just a really great mix of flavors and textures. It’s tasty and filling. The tomatoes work perfectly in it. 

A lot of time, salads like this – if you get them pre-made from the grocery store – are dripping in dressing in an overpowering way. This one isn’t like that at all. And yet it has all the flavor you could want.

Guest-Worthy

I would totally serve this to guests, and in fact am planning to at this year’s annual 4th of July barbecue. It goes great with burgers. Plus, because it’s served at room temperature, it’s perfect for a buffet. You could make it morning of or the night before, keep it in the fridge, and then take it out a short time before serving. Not only will you not worry about keeping it cold, but it’s better the more toward room temperature it gets. Remember, though, that the general rule is not to leave perishable food out for more than two hours. But please, remember even more to never take food safety advice from me.

Ingredient Tips:

• I don’t normally add the red pepper flakes unless I’m really in the mood for them.
• This salad is perfect as-is, but it could take on cooked ham, chicken, bacon, or lamb. Maybe even diced pepperoni. If you want to make it creamy, substitute ½-cup (or more, to taste) mayo for the oil and vinegar – stirring all the other dressing ingredients into it. 
• It could probably also take on whatever you have on-hand, such as celery, bell pepper, or even raisins. However, it doesn’t need any of these things. 
• Don’t worry about the onions. They’re not overpowering, but instead add a nice flavor – and I say that as someone who’s not a big fan of raw onion. Of course, if you just can’t stand onion, then do what you will … but you might need to find something zesty to take their place.
• It takes significantly fewer pieces of ruffles pasta to fill a one-pound box than it does for other shapes, like fusilli. Go ahead and boil the full box of fusilli, but use only half the dressing on it. Add the other ingredients to the salad bowl, saving the dressed fusilli for last. Add in only as much as you think makes sense, and then add more dressing as needed. Or, use all the fusilli, add the strained oil from the olives to the salad, and adjust the salt.

Cooking Tips:

• So, how do you eat this salad? With a fork, probably, but do you stab it with the tines? Or scoop it up by the forkful? Maybe a bit of both? The answer to this question will tell you how large or small the pieces of cheese should be. 
• When you initially dress the pasta, you’re going to think there’s not enough dressing. But the tomatoes will add a significant amount of their own liquid. The olives, too – if you just briefly strain them – will have a lot of their own oil still clinging to them when you add them in. When you toss the finished salad, the whole thing will be glistening and tasty. If you feet like you need something, you could make more dressing, or you could add pasta cooking liquid, and/or you could add some of the strained-out oil from the olives. I’ve never found these things to be necessary, though.

Leftovers

Refrigerated leftovers, cold and straight from the fridge, are just about as good as the freshly-made salad. I would suggest a cautiously generous sprinkling of coarse salt to freshen up cold flavors, and a very light drizzle of oil. If that oil is lemon-infused, that’s a pro move! 

Serving Sizes

If you divide this into nine servings, you’ll have generous, meal-sized servings – but don’t be surprised if everyone wants seconds. That’d mean that this batch could serve as few as four, but I’d say more realistically, six.  

As a side, you could easily get 18 servings. Cut it back to 15 if you worry that some of your eaters will want larger portions.

If you’re including this salad on a buffet, remember that the buffet needs to look generous. If you have 18 guests, you don’t want to produce 18 servings, even if you think each guest will eat only one serving. A sparse buffet signals scarcity to guests and makes them feel (at least those with decent social intelligence) like they need to ration. An abundant-looking buffet makes guests feel welcome and relaxed. In general, I feel like I need to increase the yield of any recipe by 1/4 to 1/3 if it’s going to wind up on a buffet. But not every recipe lends itself to that kind of calculation easily. So often, if I’m under, I’ll just double. This salad leftovers perfectly, so you’ll have no worries if you wind up making too much. Send some home with your guests if you don’t think you’ll eat it all.

If you want to bring this to a potluck, a single batch will fill a 11¾ x 9¼ x 2½ disposable roasting pan. If you want the pan to be overflowing, you’ll need to make a double batch, and you’ll wind up with quite a bit leftover for yourself. 

Pasta Salad

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. References: Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker, “Pasta Salad (Basic Recipe),” in The Joy of Cooking (New York: Scribner, 1997), 225–26. Thank you, Kesor. Thank you, ⌘+C. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #2 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs. 

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