This Tri Color Pasta Salad is a quick and easy rotini pasta salad that is great for picnics and potlucks! We especially love making this tri colored pasta salad when entertaining or bringing food to family and friends.
This Tri Colored Pasta Salad is a family favorite recipe!
I grew up eating tri colored pasta salad, each bite is filled with memories! It’s a really simple recipe and my Mini Chef is excited to show you how to make it. It’s a great kid friendly recipe to show kids how to prepare recipes for big gatherings.
How to make Tri Color Pasta Salad
First, let’s start with the essentials and options for making our tri color pasta salad recipe and how you can make the best tri color pasta salad recipe
- tri color pasta – colorful pasta salad is so much more fun and when you use the tri color pasta you get green, orange and yellow. you can use plain pasta, but the tri colored pasta does have a different flavor that most know and love. We make ours a tri color rotini pasta salad, but if you find other pasta shapes you can use them for this pasta salad recipe too.
- roasted red peppers – they’re full of flavor and a great addition to this salad. you could also add hot peppers. read how to roast red peppers
- olives – the olives give it that tang and they’re an absolute must in this recipe, we used canned black olives and like the way the black olives work in this recipe. there’s a big difference between green and black olives when it comes to flavor so make sure you use black to get the same delicious results.
- Italian dressing – we make our tri color pasta salad with Italian dressing. it doesn’t matter what brand, just use one you would put on a salad and that your family loves, or even make it homemade. You won’t believe how delicious pasta salad with Italian dressing is, this dressing is not just for pasta and sala but also works really well on chicken!
- cheese – we go for fresh mozzarella, but you can use chopped cheddar, pepper jack, the options are endless. I buy Ciliegine at my grocery store. Ciliegine mozzarella balls are bite-size mozzarella balls that are perfect for snacking, we just cut them in half. You could also get a big mozzarella cheese ball or log and chop it up into bite size pieces.
- meats – you can add pepperoni or salami to this pasta salad, but we use this as a vegetarian pasta salad option, for that reason, we leave the meat out. my family has always made tri color pasta salad with pepperoni and salami.
- veggies – tri color pasta salad with broccoli is a great way to pack in more veggies, we’ve also added fresh peppers, but find that broccoli is the best veggie to add if you want more vegetables in this pasta dish.
What is tri color pasta, does it contain food dyes?
That’s a great question! Tri-Color Pasta is pasta in 3 different colors. Tri-Color Pasta is naturally dyed using real food ingredients. The orange is from tomato paste and the green is from dried spinach. These natural dye real food ingredients also give a great flavor to the dish. This may not be the same case with vibrantly colored pasta, but with tri-colored pasta there shouldn’t be any dyes, just real food!
Everyone seems to have their variation of this Tri Color Pasta Salad. Our favorite way to make it is with roasted red peppers, olives, and mozzarella.
Growing up we made a different salad and used various Italian meats and cheese. Now I’m older and don’t like too much meat and love mozzarella, that is when I created this delicious recipe!
For chopping, we bought our mini chef these curious chef knives. They’re AWESOME! She can’t cut herself with them at all and she loves her kids knives. These are our favorite kid safe knives, BUT we use them too! I love using them as a salad knife to chop up leafy greens, especially when I want shredded lettuce for tacos. If you’re looking for knives for kids in the kitchen these are a great set.
This shot is priceless, it’s the “please dressing, don’t get all over me or the floor” look. 🙂
There are so many ways to make tri colored pasta salad recipes; they’re all delicious!
We love making cold pasta salad recipes together since it’s so easy to make. It’s a great recipe to get your Mini Chef in the kitchen for Mini Chef Mondays. 🙂
My mini chef loved making this recipe, but she loved making it even more with mommy and daddy.
We had a ton of fun making it together. It’s one of our family favorite recipes and it’s done within 20 minutes of starting. We like to let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before serving.
watch our video on how to make this Tri Color Pasta Salad Recipe
Pin to save our Tri Color Pasta Salad for later
This Tri Color Pasta Salad is a quick and easy rotini pasta salad that is great for picnics and potlucks! We especially love making this tri colored pasta salad when entertaining or bringing food to family and friends.
- 1 16 oz box of tri color pasta , cooked
- 8 oz mozzarella balls , cut in half
- 2 cups of olives , cut in half
- 2 roasted red peppers , cut in half (we use jarred)
- 2 cups Italian Dressing
- In a large bowl pour in the pasta.
- Add in the mozzarella, olives, red peppers, and dressing.
- Mix ingredients together and then place into the refrigerator overnight.
- Serve as desired.
Need more potluck salads?
Bowties with Parsley Garlic Butter Sauce
Easy Vegetarian Penne Pasta Recipe
Spicy Garlic Tomato Marinara Penne Pasta
Psst, You’ll also love our Potato Salad with Eggs recipe too!
Joseph Joseph Updated Scoop Strainer/Colander/Slotted Spoon, Large, GreenWe love using a handheld strainer.
Not a small one, I’m talking about the big daddy of all straining spoons.
You can nearly get all the pasta you’re cooking in one quick scoop if it’s a medium amount. When I’m doing a large recipe, I can just scoop whatever I need and place it into the dish.
This handheld colander is great for when I just want to place my pasta right into the homemade marinara sauce.
It goes right into the sauce without having to drain over the sink since you’re just draining the water right then when you scoop it up.
I also do this with vegetables or anything that needs straining.
We hope you try and enjoy our Tri Colored Pasta Salad Recipe! 🙂
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Be sure to check out each of their Mini Chef posts as well!
- Shamrock Smoothie Bowl // Finding Zest
- Fruity Pebbles Dessert Parfait Recipe // Eating Richly
- Creamy Mushroom Soup // Vegging at the Shore
- Cinnamon Roll Cookies // My Mini Adventurer
I’ve had a similar salad at family potlucks before (only difference is they usually have pepperoni as well and are called pizza pasta salad. Looks. Great for a picnic or cookout!! Nice
Sounds delicious!! Pizza pasta, sign me up! 🙂 My family (Italian) growing up also used Pepperoni, Salami, and various cheeses! We love pasta salads! This one is a great option for our vegetarian friends.