Ok this is my absolute FAVORITE pasta salad! I got this recipe from my Dad and decided to make my own modifications so that it would be a healthier version. It’s really simple to make and I actually made this batch up for a cookout I’m going to tonight. The Italian dressing gives it a really light, fresh taste along with the crunchiness of the peppers and cucumber.
This pasta salad also goes great with turkey burgers or grilled shrimp, perfect for the summer! Yes, yes I know it’s only March, but I’m beyond ready for the warm weather to kick in! Now I’m sure you could find an even healthier Italian dressing to use or even make your own using oil and vinegar, but in my opinion, this recipe wouldn’t taste as great as it does without using Zesty Italian dressing.
RECIPE
Italian Pasta Salad
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Total Time: 5 mins
Ingredients
- 1 (14.5 oz) box of Dreamfields Penne Rigate Pasta (or whole wheat pasta is great too!)
- Half a bottle of Kraft Light Zesty Italian dressing
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 whole cucumber, chopped
- 1/3 of McCormick’s Perfect Pinch Salad Supreme Seasoning, I usually just eyeball the amount
Instructions
- Cook pasta, using the box directions, until al dente and drain well.
- While pasta is boiling, chop up the red and green peppers and the cucumber and set aside. Mix together the Zesty Italian dressing with the pasta then add your chopped veggies.
- Once those are combined, slowly add in the Salad Supreme seasoning until well-coated throughout.
- Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Makes great leftovers!!
Nutrition Facts:
- Serving Size: 1/6th of recipe
- Calories: 270
- Sugar: 7.5 g
- Sodium: 482.5 mg
- Fat: 3.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 52.5 g
- Fiber: 8.3 g
- Protein: 10.4 g
* Please note that all nutrition information are just estimates. Values will vary among brands, so we encourage you to calculate these on your own for most accurate results.
How much pasta if you are using another brand? This just says “one box”.
Also, is the McCormick’s Perfect Pinch Salad Supreme Dressing a packet? A bottle? What is it? And do you have a substitution if you can’t find that particular brand?
Thanks!
Looks great, just added this to my links for today’s post!
I love Italian Pasta Salads! I make my specialty with the Garden Rotini Multicolor Pasta (idk if the flavor is different but it adds a great lively color to the salad!) chopped up a green, red, and yellow bell pepper
2 cucumbers (or more, i loooove ’em!)
1 large or 2 small tomatoes
and the best part! the zesty Italian Dressing!!!!!!!!
I’m thinking of maybe added a few more things. I have to experiment with it tho (:
HOW MUCH ITALIAN DRESSING??
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Thanks. It printed out find and I added the calorie info.
You’re doing great,
Susie
Thank you for letting me know! I will start putting all the calorie information on each print sheet and change this to the pasta salad. Hehe I’m still working out all the kinks on this. The pasta salad has about 6 servings as I used one box of pasta and one serving is 230 calories with 2 grams of fat. Hope that helps!
Oh and I click on print and it comes up the shamrock shake. 🙂
Susie
How many servings in the whole thing? How big is a serving? Would love all the calorie serving info on the print sheet. 🙂 YEHA.
Nice recipes.
Susie
Old points value 🙂 I haven’t looked up the new PointsPlus yet but for this I just calculated the calores, fat and fiber amount to get the points.
What are the calories as nothing is stated and people need to know this information. Also what is a serving? 1 cup, 2 cups???
Sorry about that, for some reason when my blog was updated there was a glitch with the nutritional info on my older recipes. I’ve updated the post and the calories are 270 for about 3/4 cup 🙂
Is the 4 points the new PointsPlus or the old POINTS value?