Wheat Pasta Salad : I hear a lot of people complaining about the taste of wheat pasta. I don’t like to eat it plain because of the wheat taste. I must have something like some dressing or sauce on it in order for me to eat it. I came up with an idea to use other salad recipe ingredients with some wheat pasta and surprisingly it was actually good tasting. If you like seven layer salad then you will love this salad because the ingredients are the same except pasta is a substitution for the lettuce and I added a few extra ingredients. I omitted the hard-boiled eggs for this recipe.
Ingredients
1 package wheat rotini pasta
1 can sweet peas
1 jar bacon bits or you can use real bacon
1 can black olives
11/2 cup miracle whip/mayo
¼ cup olive oil (or use the mayo that has olive in it)
1 onion
1 bell pepper any color
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper
Cook the wheat pasta according to package directions. I usually add some oil and salt in the water first. Drain the pasta then put into a bowl. If you want to layer it you can use a square casserole dish but I like mixing all the ingredients together. It’s best to use cooked bacon but jar bacon bits is okay. If you are cooking the bacon make sure that it is good and crispy and drain them on paper towels. Crumble the bacon into the pasta or add in a good brand of jar bacon bits in with the pasta. Slice the onion and add to the pasta. Cut up whatever color bell pepper you have and add to the bowl. Drain the can olives and the can sweet peas and add into the salad. Pasta absorbs liquids so I like to add some olive oil to the mayo/miracle whip then mix it all together. Kraft mayo has olive oil already in it if you choose to buy it mixed. Add a cup or more depending on what you like of sharp cheddar cheese and mix it all up. Salt and pepper the salad then place in the refrigerator to chill for an hour. You can experiment with different ingredients if you don’t like the ones listed. Also this salad goes great as a side or as a main dish by adding cut up chicken breasts, chicken tenders or seafood such as shrimp, lobster or tuna.