Picnic Pasta Salad -- One Dish Meal

Submitted by 3KillerBs

"A terrific, portable, one-dish meal made from items you probably have in your pantry and fridge. Good for a packed lunch when you don't want sandwiches (just keep it chilled in the cooler), or good for a cold meal at home on a hot day. Best made the night before."

 

• Ready In: 15mins
• Ingredients: 13
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• Salad ingredients

• 453.59 g macaroni, cooked and cooled (or other preferred pasta)
• 236.59-473.18 ml diced ham (ham you cut from a real ham is leaner than lunch meat ham or other processed ham products)
• 226.79 226.79 g diced swiss cheese or 226.79 g diced provolone cheese
• 59.14 ml minced sweet onion (optional)
• 453.59 g frozen green beans, cut in 1-inch pieces
• 4-6 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
• 340.19 g marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

• Dressing

• 59.14 ml cider vinegar
• 59.14 ml olive oil or 59.14 ml canola oil
• 59.14-118.29 ml mayonnaise
• 2.46 ml italian seasoning
• 4.92 ml prepared mustard (I prefer Heinz brown)
• 1.23 ml celery seed

directions

1. Mix all salad ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Whisk dressing ingredients together until smooth and well-blended.
3. Toss salad ingredients with dressing until well-blended.
4. Let sit, refrigerated, at least 4-6 hours, preferably overnight.
5. Note: Additional vegetables can be added substituted if desired. Frozen broccoli florets or chopped cucumber are particularly good. But if you add a lot of extra veggies you might need an extra half batch of dressing.
6. Note: It is not necessary to thaw the frozen veggies if making it the night before.
7. Note: Fresh beans, snapped to size, can be used raw for a crisper texture or they can be blanched and cooled first.

Reviews

[YaYa1689]

DH, DD, DS & I loved this pasta salad! I used bow tie pasta and used a small bag of frozen mixed vegetables instead of green beans. Had small pieces of broccoli, cauliflower, corn, carrots. I used diced pepper jack cheese which gave it a little spice. The deli sold me a nice Black Forest Ham which I diced into nice chunky pieces. Is a pretty salad as well as very tasty. I will definately cook this wonderful recipe again. Thanks 3 K B's! Fixed for PAC.

 

[JackieOhNo!]

This was a wonderful pasta salad that had many unique touches to set it apart from more typical pasta salads. I was pretty faithful to the recipe, using rotini pasta, 1 cup of ham, cheddar cheese, included the sweet onion, and using 4 hard-boiled eggs. These quantities worked out perfectly for our tastes. This salad made the perfect take-along lunch and packs nicely. I will definitely be making this again! Thanks for sharing.

 

[anme7039]

Left out the artichoke hearts since I wasnt a fan of them, but the rest of the salad was great! I used low fat mayo and cut back on the oil a bit and it turned out great. Will try again an throw in some more veggies, thanks for posting!