Pretty Awesome Pepperoni Pizza Pasta Salad
This Pretty Awesome Pepperoni Pizza Pasta Salad packs all your favorite toppings into one cool summer's meal. Easily change it up to incorporate your own pizza toppings of choice!
Servings 8
Ingredients
- 16 oz box rotini
- 6 oz pepperoni slices halved
- ½ of a 12 oz jar mild banana pepper rings drained
- 8 oz fresh mozzarella balls quartered (or substitute block mozzarella, cubed)
- Pint grape tomatoes halved lengthwise
- 6 oz black olives drained & halved
- 2 tablespoon thinly sliced onion can add a little more if using red onion; too much yellow onion tends to be overpowering
- ¾ cup zesty Italian dressing or dressing of choice
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- ¼ cup shredded Parmesan
Instructions
- Cook pasta al dente in salted water according to package directions. Pour the cooked pasta into a colander, rinse it under cold water to cool down, and drain well.
- While the pasta is cooking, chop up the rest of your ingredients and place the cut up pepperoni, mozzarella, banana peppers, tomatoes, olives, and onion in a large bowl.
- Add the drained and cooled pasta to the bowl with the pepperoni mixture, then toss to combine.
- Then, toss the pizza pasta mixture with the zesty Italian dressing and crushed red pepper.
- Top everything with shredded Parmesan, and: You’re done!
- This pasta salad takes about 30 minutes to cook up and throw together. Optimally, though, you’ll want to make it ahead of time and refrigerate for an hour before serving. This allows the flavors to blend and pasta to chill.
Notes
Change this up as desired with different “pizza toppings” of choice — Add chopped artichoke hearts or mushrooms, throw in some chopped bell pepper, swap out the pepperoni for Canadian bacon, swap out the banana peppers for pepperoncini, add in a little chopped fresh basil if you have some in your garden, swap the dressing for a little pesto, top the pasta salad with chopped green onion… whatever you have on hand.