Rotini pasta, tossed with pickle juice, cubed baked ham, cheese and pickles and dressed in a mayonnaise, pickle juice and sour cream-based dressing.
Dill Pickle Pasta Salad
I'm a pickle fanatic.
It would be a rare day that I didn't eat one with a sandwich or even just as a snack. Although I love bread and butter pickles, sweet gherkins and kosher dills the most, anything pickled is fair game - pickled okra, jalapenos, squash and beets - yep, love them all!
So, when I saw a dill pickle pasta salad going around social media I thought heck yeah, I gotta try that!
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It seems that most of those social recipes use a sour cream and mayo dressing with some pickle juice and often with fresh dill, pasta, often rotini but sometimes shells or other pastas, onion of some kind and cheese at minimum.
Some included cubed baked ham and since I had some in the freezer from a previous bake, I thought, why not!
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This would also be a great place to use some specialty pickles like my fire and ice pickles for instance, or one of the various brands available out there like Wickles (#ad). I almost always have Mt. Olive (#ad) koshers in the fridge so that's what I flew with here this time.
Here's what you'll need to make my Dill Pickle Pasta Salad:
For the Salad:
- 1/2-pound rotini pasta
- Salt, for the pasta water
- 1/2 cup dill pickle juice
- 1 cup cubed baked ham
- 1-3/4 cup cubed dill pickles
- 1-1/2 cup chopped sweet or yellow onion
- 4 ounces sharp cheddar, cubed
- Salt and pepper to taste, as needed
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup real mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup dill pickle juice
- 1/2 teaspoon dill weed
Here's how to make it!
This recipe is only using a half pound of pasta and I'm using one of my favorites - the healthy carb version of Dreamfields pasta (#ad), and that rotini comes in a 13.25-ounce box, so I used my handy dandy retro scale (#ad) to measure it. Y'all would not believe how much I use this kitchen tool.
You'll want to boil pasta in well salted water, drain well and add to lidded storage bowl. I'm using my Fasta Pasta microwave cooker (#ad) here. Once cooked and drained, toss pasta with 1/2 cup pickle juice and transfer to a lidded storage bowl.
Combine the sour cream, mayonnaise, pickle juice and dill weed.
Whisk until fully blended.
Top the pasta with the ham, dill pickles, onion and cheese. By the way, if you don't have any ham in the freezer that you've put up, just get a thick slice at the deli counter anytime!
Pour dressing over the pasta. Toss.
Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Although you could serve this right away, for the best flavor it really needs time to mingle, so cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours, even better overnight.
Let rest at room temperature for a few minutes before serving and freshen with additional pickle juice, if desired.
For more of my favorite pasta salads, check out this collection on my Pinterest page!
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