Quick Italian Pasta Salad With Salami

A super quick recipe for Italian pasta salad, perfect for summer weekend lunches and dinners. This delicious Italian pasta salad is an easy to make side dish to all of your favorite summer recipes! With salami, bell pepper, onion, mozzarella, tomatoes and fresh basil.

When summer hits we always go for an easy dinner that we can throw on the grill (like sausage peppers and onions) and serve it with cold pasta salads, potatoes salad or vegetable salads. Grilling and salads are summer cooking goals for most.

This recipe for Italian pasta salad is made with colorful rotini pasta noodles, vidalia onion, yellow bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, salami and fresh basil. For the Italian pasta salad dressing you can use your favorite! I like the brand Brianna's because of how authentic and fresh it tastes.

This a cold Italian pasta salad recipe, so you'll keep it chilled in the fridge. You can store it in an airtight container and enjoy this side dish all weekend long.

Ingredients For Italian Pasta Salad

Here are all the ingredients you'll need for this Italian pasta salad. It's just a handful of simple ingredients, all you need to do is chop everything up and add it to a large bowl.

• tricolor rotini pasta - is there a prettier pasta than the tricolor rotini for pasta salads? I think not. But any pasta will work if you don't have this one.
• mozzarella - you can use a block of mozzarella, cut up into small pieces or a package of mozzarella pearls which are already in bite size pieces.
• yellow bell pepper - the yellow bell pepper has a bit of sweetness to it
• vidalia onion - a sweet onion, the taste of this is less harsh than a red onion, it makes for the perfect onion addition but if you can't find a vidalia, a sweet onion will work
• cherry tomatoes - red cherry tomatoes or the colorful ones are lovely
• genoa salami - roll them up tightly and cut thin slices for cute little swirls
• fresh basil - you can get packages of fresh basil from the store or if you have it in your garden
• Italian dressing - the Brianna's brand is my favorite Italian dressing but anything you want to use will work

How To Make Italian Pasta Salad With Salami

Okay, this really shouldn't even be a section because this recipe is so crazy easy to make! But I love to include any helpful tips and other time saving nuggets I may have.

Try to get the tri-color rotini, it's so beautiful and will make your pasta salad just pop with color! Always start this recipe by boiling the rotini pasta first. While you are at it throw in your boiling pasta a few pinches of salt, salted water always makes pasta taste better.

While the noodles boil, you can chop up the vegetables and mozzarella.

For the basil, my favorite thing to do (if your grocery store has it) is to get the little basil plant instead of the package of basil. The price difference is usually $2-$3 and you can keep your basil plant alive and keep on using it. More people don't think to look for these at the store but definitely ask.

When you go to drain the pasta, don't rinse it with water, just let it cool.

Put everything together in a big serving bowl and add the Italian dressing. You can use as much or as little dressing as you want.

FAQ

More Summer Side Dishes

A few of my favorite summer side dishes are buttermilk honey corn bread, 10 minute avocado corn salad and chipotle corn salsa.

If you want to top off the night with a yummy dessert try this apple crisp, s'mores cookie bars, oreo funfetti sprinkle cookies or peach blueberry crisp.