Summer Pasta Salad {Potluck Style}

Cleaning out your fridge never tasted so good!

I’ve been doing this blogging thing for a little over 2 years now. That being said, I’m pretty sure we can call ourselves friends, right?

Amigos. Buddies. My peeps. We be tight, yo! Now, all we need is a secret handshake. Hold on, do those still exist?

No worries, I’ll just start a new wave of gangsta foodie handshakes. It will go something like this: Knead the dough, knead the dough, whisk the batter in the bowl, shake that cocktail tumbler, over-the-shoulder salt throw, foodie fist bump/ hand explosion combo.

Did we just become best friends… I think so!

Now that we’re friends, I’m going to feed you some leftovers. What? Friends eat other friend’s leftovers.

It’s totally a thing.

Every week I force myself to clean out my refrigerator. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. I salvage what I can and throw throw the rest away. It never fails, every week I have a pile of lack-luster fruit and veggies that I convinced myself I would eat before the week ended.

Bar too high.

I don’t like being wasteful, so I always find a way to use the misfit fruits and veggies. This week, I made you a potluck-style summer pasta salad. Basically, it’s a combination of leftover veggies from the crisper, scraps of deli meat that Squirrel forgot to eat, and various hunks of uneaten cheese.

I like to think of this recipe as an abstract. I took a bunch of different food groups and forced them into one cohesive not so cohesive recipe.

This may be a bowl of leftover junk I had sitting in the fridge waiting to die, but I assure you, it’s the best almost-dead bowl of food you’ll ever have.

Feel free to use any variety of seasonal veggies you have on hand. This recipe is completely customizable. Since Squirrel prefers rotini noodles, that’s what I used. I made the mistake of using spaghetti noodles in my last pasta salad and had to listen to the man whine.

A noodle is a noodle, sheesh!

This big potluck salad has it all. We got your carbs, your meat, your veggies, and your cheese.

Print Recipe

Summer Pasta Salad

Yield: 8 servings

Total Time: 22 minutes

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 pound rotini pasta
• 1 cup diced sweet peppers (red, orange, yellow)
• 1/2 cup diced green pepper
• 1 1/2 cup seedless cucumber, diced
• 2 cups raw broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 cup diced red onion
• 1 (10-ounce) can diced tomatoes with chills, drained
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can black, cannellini, or garbanzo beans, drained and ringed (optional)
• 2 tablespoons McCormick Salad Supreme seasoning
• 1 cup diced cheese cubes
• 1 cup diced pepperoni
• 1 cup diced hard salami
• 1 (16.5-ounce) bottle Italian dressing

 

 

Directions:

1. Add all of the ingredients to a large bowl. Stir to combine.
2. Transfer the pasta salad to an airtight container and refrigerate until ready to serve.

All images and text ©One Sweet Mess.

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