Pasta Salad

Submitted by loof751

"Great for picnics, potlucks, or as a meal on it's own!"

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 6
• Serves: 6-10

ingredients

• 1 (12 ounce) package rotini pasta
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen green peas
• 1 large tomatoes, chopped
• 1⁄2 lb deli ham (in 1 piece, not sliced)
• 1 (4 ounce) jar sliced mushrooms, drained (optional)
• 1 (16 ounce) bottle ranch dressing

directions

1. Pour the frozen peas into a colander.
2. Cook the pasta according to the package directions until 'al dente'. Drain the pasta by pouring it into the colander over the peas (the hot pasta will thaw the peas while you complete the preparation of the salad).
3. Cube the ham and saute it until lightly browned.
4. Mix the warm pasta, peas, tomato, ham, and mushrooms in a large bowl. Add the ranch dressing and toss until all salad ingredients are well coated (I usually use almost all of the bottle).
5. Chill until ready to serve.

Reviews

[katew]

Great and versatile summer salad !! I added some extra things like lettuce and grated carrot to pad it out and make it into a stand alone meal. Loved the slivers of ham and dressing !!

 

[Chef Buggsy Mate]

Made this for lunch today for my girls and I. I used chopped celery in place of the peas as a personal choice (next time I will add chopped up raw sugar snap peas), after I mixed the pasta, chopped celery and tomato in the bowl, I discovered that someone polished off a whole package of deli ham last night, so I cooked up some bacon and crumbled it in place of the ham. The only other addition I made was to add a small amount of chopped onion... I will be making the recipe again however; next time I will purchase some ham to use as I think I would like that better then the bacon. My daughters also suggested that I add some fresh squeezed lemon juice to the ranch dressing to add a bit of a twang. Made and reviewed for the 70th AUS/NZ Recipe Swap.

 

[Boomette]

This pasta salad was so good. My son had it for lunch and he loved it. That's a good use for ham. Thanks loof :) Made for the Australian Recipe Swap for July 2012

 

[linguinelisa]

This is a good pasta salad. I used pepperoni instead of ham and also had fresh mushrooms I thinly sliced. I'm not a big pea lover so next time I will cut down on that, any vegetable would be good with it. Made for Please Review My Recipe cooking tag game.

 

[duonyte]

I thought this was very nice, although I would likely use a vinaigrette next time rather than a creamy dressing. I used some turkey instead of ham, and also used some fresh mushrooms that I sauteed briefly before incorporating. I also added fresh thyme and oregano from my garden. This made a nice lunch.