A pasta salad made with farfalle bowtie pasta and cooked chicken, tossed with ranch dressing, bacon, grape tomatoes and baby spinach.
BLT Bowtie Chicken Pasta Salad
Good gracious the heat!
As I publish this here in July we've been under an extreme heat warning, not just the average heat warning, for days. I'm intensely thankful for air conditioning these days, and frankly the ability to pay for it cuz y'all... it ain't cheap for sure!
How's that heat going for the meal planning here lately?
For the hubby (aka The Cajun) and me, it's been a lot of sandwiches, burgers, pasta dishes and salads of all kinds - including veggie, cucumber, tomato, potato, pasta salads, protein salads and main dish salads - plus salsas of all kinds with chips and fix quick skillet meals for sure. By the way, you can tap any of those links if you're looking for some ideas!
Just a quick reminder.... if you aren't interested in the chit chat, info, photos, tips, product recommendations and such on a blog, as always, you'll find the complete recipe text with measurements and instructions, as well as a printable document, a little bit further down the page. Just swipe or scroll down to the bottom of the post!
Here's what you need to make my BLT Bowtie Chicken Pasta Salad
- 1/2-pound uncooked dry farfalle (bowtie) pasta
- 3 cups cooked shredded chicken
- 1/4 cup chopped red onion
- 3/4 cup ranch dressing
- 10 slices cooked bacon, coarsely chopped
- 2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup packed fresh baby spinach leaves or iceberg lettuce, coarsely chopped
- Salt, pepper and Creole or Cajun seasoning, to taste
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Don't you love this retro scale? I bought it a long, long time ago from Amazon and I use it alot y'all. This one isn't available today, but there are many others (#ad), including digital and retro. For this recipe, I'm using a half pound of bowtie pasta, and while you could in the past eyeball it fairly well, this pasta, like most today, comes in a 12-ounce box, not a full pound.
I'm also using my microwave pasta cooker (#ad), of course! I recently bought this one because it came with add-on trays for steaming, which I have yet to figure out how to use due to lack of recipes or instructions, so between this one and the Fasta Pasta, I still use the latter the most!
Once cooked, drain well.
Add the pasta, chicken, purple onion and half of the dressing to a lidded storage bowl.
Give it a toss, cover and refrigerate several hours until needed, but let come to room temperature before serving.
For our "L" I had a bit of fresh baby spinach leftover that I needed to use up so we're actually gonna use that instead of lettuce, though absolutely use lettuce if you'd rather! I suggest giving it a spritz of some fruit and vegetable wash (#ad) followed by a nice rinse.
Okay y'all. Don't laugh. I recently bought this USB rechargeable salad spinner. I know. The first thing I thought when I saw it was "who the heck needs a battery operated salad spinner?" (#ad)
Well... I got the last laugh on that one because, turns out I love this thing. It's much easier on older hands, it's fast, it works great and holds a charge for a long time. I guess I was the one who needed one!
When you're just about ready to serve the pasta salad, spin the spinach or lettuce to remove any excess water. That's where this spinner is king y'all! Look how dry the spinach is. Give it a rough chop.
When ready to serve, add tomatoes, bacon and spinach or lettuce to the dressed pasta salad.
Toss, adding additional ranch dressing as needed.
Add seasonings, taste and adjust and offer any additional dressing at the table.
For more of my favorite pasta salads, check out this collection on my Pinterest page!
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