Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad

Now entering my favorite salad – the Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad. You guys — I could eat this everyday…and I have.

There are some foods I never tire of eating — caprese salads, greek salads, Caesar salad. Yes, I am seeing the theme. I’m a big salad girl. I always have been. This didn’t start when I became a dietitian.

I remember the old days going to Ponderosa. I’m sure everyone else was ordering their chopped steak with the big fries. Not this girl. That salad bar! It was amazing. I love an all you can eat salad bar. So, now that I’m all grown up, I still keep all the fixins for a good salad at home.

I love this salad because it’s easy. Most of my recipes these days are “dump” recipes (I know that sounds bad, but it’s really accurate) – everything goes in at the same time. This one works like that. If you get all of the pieces done, then they all just get mixed together. It’s a great make-ahead dish and then quick assembly right before you need to eat.

Here’s what I mean by that:

• Make the pasta ahead of time and drizzle a little olive oil on it until you’re ready – keep in the fridge.
• Cook the chicken in advance. You can batch cook chicken and have it ready all week or use the old standby, the rotisserie chicken.
• You can either shred your own parm and have it ready in advance, or you can buy the preshredded. Once upon a time I was a “always shred your cheese” girl…buy the preshredded here, it’s okay.

I hope you try this Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad mash up, it’s a quick dinner or lunch and you might just get your kids to eat it, because it has pasta in it!

Print