Olive Garden Pasta Salad has all the Italian flavors of the famous Olive garden salad, but in pasta salad form.
Everyone loves this easy side dish recipe. This is the perfect pasta salad to bring to a cookout or potluck.
You’ll also love my classic macaroni salad.
How To Make Olive Garden Pasta Salad
Note: This is a summary. The full printable recipe and step by step video are located at the bottom of this post.
- Cook any bite-size pasta according to its package directions.
- Drain the pasta and run it under cold water until the pasta is cool.
- Transfer the pasta to a mixing bowl.
- Add sliced red onions and shredded parmesan cheese.
- Add sliced tomatoes and pepperoncini peppers.
- Add Olive Garden Italian dressing (No affiliation).
- Mix well.
- Top the pasta salad with chopped romaine lettuce.
- Cover the bowl.
- Chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
- Once chilled, stir well to coat the lettuce in the dressing.
How To Store
Store covered in the refrigerator for up to three days. The lettuce will lose some of its crispness, but it is still good.
Make It A Meal
I love this pasta salad. Sometimes I prefer to serve it as an entree instead of a side dish. To do that, I add two cups of pulled rotisserie chicken before adding the dressing.
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Olive Garden Pasta Salad Recipe
Olive Garden Pasta Salad has all the Italian flavors of the famous Olive garden salad, but in pasta salad form.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Chill Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Video
Ingredients
- 8 oz. tri-color rotini or any bite-size pasta
- ½ cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
- 2 sliced roma tomatoes
- 4 whole pepperoncini peppers
- 1 1/2 cups Olive Garden Italian dressing
- 3 cups chopped romaine lettuce
Instructions
- Cook the pasta according to its package directions. Drain the pasta and rinse it under cold water until the pasta is cool.
- Transfer the pasta to a large mixing bowl. Add the parmesan cheese, red onion, tomatoes, and pepperoncini.
- Add the salad dressing. Mix well.
- Top the pasta salad with the chopped lettuce.* Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
- Once the pasta salad has chilled, stir well to coat the lettuce in dressing.
Notes
*Don’t mix the lettuce into the pasta salad at this point to retain its crunch.
You could also add ½ cup of large pitted black olives to be more authentic to the original Olive Garden salad. We don’t like them, so I leave those out.
Nutrition
Serving: 1/8th of the recipe | Calories: 246kcal | Carbohydrates: 29g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.03g | Cholesterol: 5mg | Sodium: 552mg | Potassium: 212mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 1751IU | Vitamin C: 8mg | Calcium: 76mg | Iron: 1mg
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Made this for a BBQ with friends last week, and it was a huge hit!
OMG I adore olive garden salad! So brilliant to add some pasta to the mix. Love it!
Excited and looking forward to making it. Thank you.