Admittedly, this recipe is a little cheaty, but this is a super easy pasta salad for other mama’s like me!
I’m about to completely change the way you think about me, but you know what? I’m okay with that. I’m all about keeping things real.
This story starts a long time ago. Like 21 years ago-ish. I was around 8. I had a friend. She was at my house one summer day and we had a brilliant plan. You see, we had a craving. Not for sugar or chocolate or soda or any of those other foods that normal 8 year old girls might crave.
We wanted Kraft Seven Seas Viva Italian salad dressing, which, by the way, has been discontinued. To say this saddens me is an understatement. (Update: It has not been discontinued, but is extremely difficult to find, for some reason!)
Back to the plan.
We wanted salad dressing. We just didn’t want lettuce. I mean, come on, lettuce totally cramps salad dressing’s style, am I right?
You’ll love this easy pasta salad recipe!
Knowing that my parents probably wouldn’t understand our desire to drink salad dressing, we very quietly snuck into the kitchen when they weren’t looking. We found two sandwich baggies, grabbed the salad dressing from the fridge, and gave the bottle a couple of good squeezes right into each baggy. Then we nonchalantly walked, probably while innocently whistling, to the far reaches of my backyard, behind the apple tree.
That’s when we put the baggies up to our lips and drank.
It was…not as good as we had hoped. We suffered through it though and drank every last drop of that salad dressing. Then we hid the baggys under some bushes. We would have liked to burn the evidence, but my parents probably would have spotted the smoke.
I was a strange child.
I also used to eat my mama’s bath salts. What? They were delicious.
Anyway, because this pasta salad is loaded with my favorite salad dressing, eating it always takes me back to that sunny day, on the hill behind our apple tree, drinking salad dressing out of a baggy. Those were the days, my friends. Those were the days.
Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 16 ounces Fusilli pasta cooked and cooled
- 5 ounces green olives sliced
- 1/4 cup black olives sliced
- 1 small red onion diced
- 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/2 cup pepperoni slices quartered
- 1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
Instructions
- Add everything to a large mixing bowl and stir well to combine.
- Add additional salad dressing as desired.
- Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.
Erin says
When I used to hate salad and pretty much all vegetables, I used to each croutons covered in salad dressing
[email protected] says
That is hilarious!!! Especially since I used to do that with ketchup and mustard. :/ I know…strange.
The pasta salad looks gorgeous! Love that you added olives in there… I have to have olives in pasta salads. 🙂
Natalie says
That was hilarious. I love that you remember the exact name of the dressing. When my brother and I were little, we used to take Mrs. Powell’s rolls (amazing rolls from a little bakery in our town), and fill them with homemade-from-the-little-green packet Ranch dressing and lots of bacon bits.(not even the real ones. The fake ones.) Heaven, I tell you.
Yammie @ Yammie's Noshery says
My friend and I used to sneak some raw macaroni noodles out of the pantry and eat them like cereal with water. Disgusting, I know. One time we left our bowls of noodles in water in her play refrigerator and next time I came to her house we found that they were still there, but they were completely covered in fuzzy, black mold. It was quite an adventure to get them upstairs to the garbage without her mom seeing. We ending up eating an entire box of cheez-its, dumping the evidence in the box and then nonchalantly taking it upstairs to throw it away. Ah, good times.
Leanna @ Raptortoe says
aahaha that salad dressing baggy story is hilarious. We all did weird things like that! I cooked from very young, and I had this thing for mixing random hot sauces into canned beans and adding pasta. It was “fancy”.
shelly (cookies and cups) says
u can’t just eat chapstick or glue like the rest of us? u have to go and take it to the next level…contraband salad dressing.
that is seriously the most hilarious thing ever.
tammy says
that is too funny! isn’t it funny as kids we thought we were so sneaky! I have several pasta salad recipes on my blog that use italian dressing..come check them out!
Katescakesandbakes says
Brilliant tale! I used to crawl out, as a baby after the bread my Mum would throw out to the birds. True story. It wasn’t like my parents starved me, its just I ws a right fussy child and only ate bread and cheese and ham. So it made perfect sense.
David King says
I remember eating bath salts with you hahahaha
Joanne says
Yeah…that is kind of weird. I used to sneak pieces of Kraft’s singles when I was a kid…and that stuff basically tastes like plastic. So I’d say we’re even.
Love the sound of this pasta salad! So many amounts of delicious in one bowl!
Debkb says
I love the SS Italian dressing also but I don’t think I could just drink it!
You might want to recheck the stores as it’s still available here in WNY at the local grocery store chain and Super Walmart”s. I just bought some a couple weeks ago.
Rivki Locker says
Just came across your blog and am so glad I did! That’s a really funny story. Kids do all sorts of wild and crazy things!
Barbara says
You are so funny! We sure craved some odd things when we were young. I was never able to eat mac and cheese without prunes. I know, really weird.
Love your pasta salad and frankly, Italian dressing is perfect on it..I use it on mine too.
Debi says
LOL! Again, funny stuff. We used to hide some other things out in the backyard behind the pool…not necessarily the salad dressing baggies…but my parents could still spot our smoke! Ha ha. I’m soooo craving pasta salad now! Yum! I had pasta pizza last night…cheese pizza topped with penne alfredo and more cheese (and a little broccoli to say we had a veggie) and baked until bubbly and gooey! Yeah, if I eat that again I will die of heart failure. Salad dressing it is today! Thanks!
Cookbook Queen says
Okay so…….you’re weird. Your parents are probably going to ground you now.
But I used to smuggle bags of dry cereal to school and then throw away the lunch my mom made me and eat the dry cereal instead.
I don’t know why.
Beth says
What a great post! We all have one or two unusual culinary tastes, although bath salts are pretty far out there.
Alli says
That is hilarious, disgusting, adorable and just what childhood memories should be filled with. I think your parents will be happy you were not smuggling worse out in baggies.
Leslie says
Oh Karly, you make me laugh.
mrsblocko says
My family loved this salad. I wrote an entry on my blog about it here. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
I never drank salad dressing, but I did eat a stick of butter once, oh and drank the brine from a pickle jar. Yeah, neither of them were as great as I thought they were, but I kept right on going, just like you did!
Kate H. says
I love pasta salad and I’m not sure I’ve ever tried that dressing but I could eat Hidden Valley ranch with a spoon!
MEAl5 says
! So many amounts of delicious in one bowl!