Cold Italian Pasta Salad Recipe

My addiction to Italian pasta salad started about five years ago, my sophomore year of high school. I was in track and during the meets, one of us would always bring a huge bowl of pasta salad and the rest of us would bring our own forks. During the breaks we would all chow down on pasta salad like we've never been fed before. It was always a fight to see who would get the pepperonis first. YUM!

It's one of my favorite past times and still a huge reason why I continue to make Italian pasta salad every now and then. It is so simple and you can throw it together in a matter of 15 minutes. Now I know there are a million different ways to make this stuff, but this is my take on it so I hope you enjoy it! (This is how a track kid eats)

Ingredients needed:

(There's no exact measuring to this recipe, just use the amounts you would like for each piece)

Colored Rotini pasta 

Italian dressing

Pepperonis

Cherry tomatoes 

Shredded Parmesan cheese

Black olive halves 

Mozzarella cheese chunks

1. Boil water and start cooking your pasta. Meanwhile, I start getting all my ingredients ready. I cut the cherry tomatoes in half and pick out the seeds. I also cut the pepperonis in half (and eat a few). I use canned olive halves, so I drain the water and set them aside.

2. When you pasta is cooked to al dente, drain and throw in a bowl. If you want to eat the salad right away throw the pasta in the fridge for a bit to cool it down faster. Or just throw everything together and pop in the fridge for later. Once the noodles have cooled throw all the goodness in and mix up. top with Italian dressing and Parmesan cheese. 

3. Sit down and gobble up!

This is my favorite :)

Happy Monday everyone!

xo, k