How To Make Italian PASTA SALAD with Homemade ITALIAN DRESSING

Hey everybody, it's Natasha of natashaskitchen.com and today I'm gonna show you how to make an Italian pasta salad. This is loaded with all the best ingredients. This is so satisfying and it keeps really well in the refrigerator so it is perfect for meal prep. And I'm gonna show you how to make a homemade Italian dressing that'll make you fall in love with salad. So let's get started. We'll start with the simple dressing. In a mason jar, combine 1 1⁄2 cup of extra virgin olive oil and three tablespoons of white wine vinegar. Next, add 1⁄4 cup of finely grated Parmesan cheese and one tablespoon of real mayo. Also add one teaspoon of sugar to balance out that vinegar and finely grate in one large garlic clove. You can also use a garlic press. For our seasonings, we use 1⁄2 teaspoon each of oregano, parsley, and basil. Also 3⁄4 teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of black pepper. Most store-bought salad dressings are saltier so if you do like more salt, you can add the salt to taste. Cover that tightly with a lid and shake it up until it's well combined. I love making this in a mason jar because you can make it ahead and it keeps really well in the refrigerator. Then before serving, just give it a good shake. Try that yummy dressing and you can add more salt to taste at this point. We'll set that aside and make our Italian pasta salad. To cook the pasta, bring a large saucepan of water to a boil, casually add salt to the water, then add eight ounces of rotini pasta and cook according to the package instructions until it's al dente or firm to the bite. It's super important that you don't overcook the pasta. While the pasta is on the stove, you can prep the rest of your ingredients. Slice up six ounces of salami into thin strips. Next, cut in half 10 ounces or about three cups of cherry tomatoes and I find it's easiest to use a serrated knife to get through those tomato skins and if you have a trick for quickly cutting up cherry tomatoes, let me know in the comments. Next, dice up half of an English cucumber and what I love about this salad is you can change it up based on what's in your refrigerator if you don't like cucumbers, you can also try bell peppers. You'll see me using this food scraper tool a ton. It is one of my favorite kitchen tools and it's very inexpensive. I will link to ours in the notes. Next, finely dice one medium red onion and I do like to finely dice so that it still has all of that great onion flavor but it disappears into the salad. Next, you'll need eight ounces of fresh mozzarella. I'm using mozzarella pearls because they're easy and you don't have to cut them but you can also use mozzarella balls and cut those in half or use an eight ounce block of fresh mozzarella and just dice it up. We're using half a cup of black olives and you can buy those pitted and sliced already to save yourself some time. I also love to add half a cup of Kalamata olives. Make sure you get the ones that are pitted and just cut them in half. Also add one half cup of roasted red peppers, coarsely chop those up and you can use store-bought roasted red peppers in a jar or you can roast your own. If you're feeling adventurous, I will leave a link to our tutorial on how to roast sweet peppers. And last but not least, finely chop one third cup of fresh parsley. Now make sure you have your timer set for your pasta and turn it off as soon as it reaches al dente then drain off the hot water right away and rinse under cold water until the pasta is completely cooled down. Rinsing the pasta in cold water does three important things. It stops the cooking process, removes excess starch and cools down the pasta. Now just layer everything into a large salad bowl starting with the pasta as a base. I love arranging things in a ring that way you can see all the tasty and beautiful ingredients and it just looks irresistibly good. I love that you can really customize this salad and if there's something special that you put into your pasta salads, let me know in the notes. Oh, who's excited? All that's left to do is to dress it up and serve it. And if you want it to make it ahead for a party or for meal prep, you could just cover it with plastic wrap, pop it in the fridge and it'll last longer that way before adding the dressing or you can dress it a couple hours before your event. Oh, it just gets better as it stands. So let's do this. All right, and then with the dressing, just like with any dressing, there is some settling and that's normal, it can separate. So just before serving, give it a good shake to combine everything back together, make sure it's really smooth. And then, oh, oh, that smells good. Oh, this smells good. And it's had some time to meld. Oh my goodness. Seriously, this gets better with time too. All right, let's do this. And be generous, just add the dressing to taste. All right, now that we've added a generous amount of dressing, we just have to toss this together so that every bite is coated in that scrumptious dressing. My mouth is totally watering for this and I'm hungry. This is perfect because it is a meal in itself. It's loaded with grain and protein with salami and cheese and then tons of fresh veggies. This is such a treat. Also perfect for parties because it is make ahead. Oh my goodness. Make this and watch people's eyes light up. This is so good. Okay, I'm gonna get right to this. Seriously, I'm so hungry. All right, here we go. And it's just a nice blend of everything. I don't like pasta salads where it's just a ton of pasta. I like a ton of everything. Okay, here we go. Try to get a little bit of everything on my fork, which is like good luck to me because there's a lot of stuff. Okay, here we go. That is so good. I love the different textures in there too. You've got the tender plump noodles and the cheese, of course, and then the crisp veggies, the cucumber and tomato. It is such a treat. It just feels so fresh and so, so satisfying. And then seriously, this dressing. You have to try this dressing. Not just for this salad, but for all of your salads. I'll leave a link to the print-friendly version in the description. It is just such a good Italian dressing. Also, before you add the dressing, this is perfect for meal prepping and we love to use these containers. I'll link to these, our favorite. We've reused them. They're washable, which is awesome. You just wanna put in the salad before the dressing and just put the little dressing in a little cup and mix it together and serve it when you're ready to eat it. It's perfect for work lunch, school lunch. So delicious and satisfying and there's no need to heat it. And I love that you can change it up based on what you have in the fridge. So you could add some fresh bell pepper. You could change up the cheese. A feta cheese would be really good here or Parmesan, add a different kind of veggie. It's just really up to you. Make this salad your own. This is just our favorite pasta salad. If you guys love this recipe and you're looking for more meal prep ideas that you can make ahead, check out some of our favorites right over there and right down there. And make sure before you go, you click below to subscribe. And when you do, make sure you hit that little bell icon so you'll get notifications when we post a new video so you'll never miss a new recipe. We'll see you in our next video.