Olive Garden Pasta Salad Recipe

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5 from 2 votes

Olive Garden Pasta Salad has all the Italian flavors of the famous Olive garden salad, but in pasta salad form.

Prep Time10

Cook Time10

Chill Time1

Total Time1 20

Course: Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine: American, Italian

Keyword: Italian Pasta Salad, Olive Garden Pasta Salad

Servings: servings

Calories: 246kcal

Author: Amanda Finks

Ingredients

8 oz. tri-color rotini or any bite-size pasta
1/2 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.

Video

Notes

*Don't mix the lettuce into the pasta salad at this point to retain its crunch.

You could also add 1/2 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