Ranch Pasta Salad

In case you haven't noticed, I have a bit of an aversion to cooking or baking from a box. I always feel like I'm cheating. This recipe is one of my "ditch-the-box" acquisitions. When I was first out of college, I learned to like pasta salad. I say "learned" to like, because I had a firm belief that pasta should be hot. Eating cold pasta seemed about as appetizing as cold fries. But I learned to like it anyway. For a long time, I made my pasta salads from a box, and they were very good.

And then I had company one night and wanted to serve pasta salad. I could not bring myself to feed them a boxed salad, so I found this recipe. It was easy, it was colorful, and I deemed it a keeper. I will warn you that the broccoli starts to taste a tiny bit funny after a couple of days in the salad, so I wouldn't eat it for days on end. But that is my only complaint!

The Recipe:
3 cups uncooked tricolor spiral pasta
1 cup chopped fresh broccoli florets
3/4 cup chopped seeded peeled cucumber
1/2 cup chopped seeded tomato
1 bottle (8 ounces) ranch salad dressing
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions; drain and rinse in cold water. In a large bowl, combine the pasta, broccoli, cucumber, tomato an cheese. Drizzle with salad dressing; toss to coat.


I've been known to make this salad with other versions of pasta, but the tri-color really is the prettiest. I do use low fat dressing and it works just fine. Now and then I'll also throw in some pepperoni and black olives because I love them.

This time when I made the salad, I actually wanted to assemble it on my lunch hour. So the night before, I chopped up all the veggies and put them in dishes. I felt like such a Paula Deen just dumping my prepared ingredients into my bowl. LOL. I bought grape tomatoes and just cut them into quarters for this. It's far less messy than contending with a big tomato.

...For those of you who have never seen pasta cooking before....

Make sure you rinse off the pasta well with cold water or it will end up melting your cheese!

I had to transport this salad to a carry-in, so I decided to use my Pampered Chef Batter Bowl to mix it up. That way I had a handle and a lid and the whole nine yards. :) I put in everything except the cheese and dressing, and mixed that up.

Then I added the cheese...

And finished it up with the dressing! I did this on my lunch hour and then right after work, I added a little more dressing so it was nice and fresh for serving.

Mrs. Lee (my home ec teacher) would be so proud. COLORFUL!!!!