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!

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?

A perfect pasta salad for any gathering, or just because! Rotini pasta, paired with vegetables, meats and cheeses, mixed with a salad seasoning blend and dressed with a quality homemade or commercial creamy Italian dressing. Pictured here with a tuna salad wrap and pickled baby beets.

Party Pasta Salad

It's pretty easy to make a pasta salad, and you don't really need a "recipe" so to speak. You just toss some cooked pasta with favorite vegetables, sometimes some kind of protein and dress it with a favorite salad dressing and voila, you've got a pasta salad!

Of course, you may not be able to recreate that combination unless you wrote it down and that's where a recipe comes in handy.

This pasta salad is one of those that went viral on social media, though, as usual there are lots of comments from folks talking about how they "have been making this all of their lives!" 

A Southwestern style pasta salad featuring rotini pasta with taco seasonings, salsa, veggies and beans. Drizzle with your favorite salad dressing and garnish as desired.

Taco Pasta Salad   

Pasta salads are such a welcome addition to the summertime menu, aren't they?

Some days it's just so hot that the thought of putting a lot of effort into a full out meal can be daunting and overwhelming, nevermind the fact that I may not even have an appetite for that!

What happens with me during those times is that I end up snacking on a whole bunch of junk, instead of having a "meal."

Not great.

Pasta salad, made with tiny shell pasta, tossed with a dressing made with mayonnaise, sour cream and Creole mustard with grilled salmon folded in.

Grilled Salmon Pasta Salad

I love fish! Some of my favorites include Mississippi farm raised catfish, of course, as well as the bounty from our beloved Mississippi Sound and Gulf of Mexico. 

White trout, speckled trout, redfish, mackerel, snapper, red drum, grouper, even good ole ground mullet and Biloxi Bacon aka striped popeye mullet or jumping mullet, are just some of the fish that are found here, and frankly most of us from here were just about weaned on it all from birth!

A classic spaghetti salad, dressed with Italian dressing and dried herbs and tossed with stuffed green olives, pitted medium black olives, marinated artichoke hearts, fresh broccoli florets, grape tomatoes and cucumber.

Cold Spaghetti Salad with Shrimp

Maybe the original "pasta" salad, spaghetti salad has been around for a long time.

Starting pretty basic in its beginnings, the base recipe was just good ole Italian dressing or a simple blend of olive oil and vinegar, poured over a bed of cooked spaghetti noodles, tossed with fresh tomatoes and chilled.

Of course, as always, people have added their own touches to even that salad over the years.

Rotini pasta, tossed with a mix of vegetables - broccoli, red onion, sweet bell pepper, carrots and tomatoes here - mixed with a seasoning blend and dressed with a quality homemade or commercial Italian or Ranch dressing.

Supreme Pasta Salad

Whew y'all! It's been super-hot and humid here along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and we're heading into a couple of 100+ degree actual temperatures here the next few days. No telling what the "feels like" temp will be with the humidity factored in. Wow.

Many of you have been in a similar heat wave that we have down here, and it sure feels like it will never end, even though summer actually only "officially" started this week! Yeah, okay...

We all seem to be suffering with this heat.

A great summer salad made with garden fresh tomatoes, veggies and bacon, tossed in a flavorful mayonnaise dressing and macaroni.

Bacon and Tomato Macaroni Salad

This year, I only planted tomatoes, and although there are a few stragglers out there, they've all just about played out. I've had a few small baskets of them going at any given time this summer though, and I sure have been enjoying them, in every form possible!

This macaroni salad is among the definite summer favorites of mine and one that's been sharing space in my fridge throughout this heat wave.

Pasta Salad Collection

A collection of pasta salads from Deep South Dish blog.

I love pasta salads, anytime of the year really, but most especially in the hot summer months. You'll almost always find one in my fridge, and my Tuna Macaroni Salad is a summertime favorite.

Some form of pasta, often with a protein, dressed with a vinaigrette or creamy dressing, and you've got a great meal, that's not too heavy for those super hot days when your energy is already sapped.

 

Tri-color rotini pasta is paired with some of my favorite pizza toppings, purple onion, green and red bell pepper, black olives, pepperoni, bacon, mushrooms, grape tomatoes and mozzarella and dressed with a spicy tomato dressing.

Pizza Pasta Salad

Hey, y'all should be very proud of me!! I have managed to post more than two recipes in August so far. Seems Grandma Mary needed to get her back-to-school routine going too I guess. :) Just in time too, because fall is right around the corner now, and I've still got some summer left to share yet!

I love a good pasta salad in the summer and I sure can make a meal of this one.

An old fashioned dish made from tuna, macaroni, chopped egg, celery, peas, salt and pepper - and for my additions, Old Bay and Cajun seasoning. Lots of potential add-ins will make this your own too!

Old Fashioned Tuna Macaroni Salad

Along with tomatoes, cucumbers and watermelon, I have eaten this macaroni salad so many times over the summer, I figured it was about time to share it!

It's not anything new of course, or even anything I've created - frankly it's been around longer then me - but if you're a little younger than me, you may have grown up with it. If you're closer to my age, you may remember it through your early days of marriage, or those struggling first apartment or college years, because it was both easy to make and economical. I'd be willing to bet that at least some of you also still make it yourself!

Classic peas and pasta salad, made with tiny shell pasta and dressed with homemade buttermilk Ranch, spicy mustard, dill, red onion, cubed cheese, bacon and gently tossed with tuna fillets.

Peas and Pasta Salad with Tuna

Okay y'all. I know everybody's in fall mode, sharing their favorite apple recipes, and pumpkin recipes won't be far behind - if they haven't started up already. Heck, we're only in the high 80s this week here in South Mississippi, so that's practically fall weather here, far as we are concerned. But... I'm gonna squeeze in at least one more "summer" recipe before the calendar tells me it's officially fall.

Chicken Pasta Salad made with a homemade Ranch style vinegar dressing, short cut pasta, cooked chicken, Vidalia onion, celery, cheese, bacon, peas and tomatoes.

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

Hey y'all... the unofficial start to the cookout season is here, the heat is on and that means it's pasta salad time! Don't you just love a good pasta salad in the summer?

They are so adaptable and easily varied, make-ahead friendly, hold well in the fridge for awhile, and are a great take along for family gatherings, potlucks and church suppers. You can literally make an easy meal of it on a hot summer's day if you like, especially when you throw in a little protein. I've added chicken here, but a good smoked ham or shrimp are both excellent too.

A cold spaghetti salad, made with angel hair, vermicelli or thin spaghetti, Italian dressing, fresh tomatoes and a variety of add-ins.

Cold Vermicelli Spaghetti Salad

Many of my blogging colleagues are all abuzz about fall recipes right now - every form of apple and pumpkin and oatmeal, caramel and maple syrup, soups and stews and chili, casseroles, butternut and acorn squash recipes are all already starting to appear.

I've been blogging since 2008, and it begins every year right about mid-August, but... as I write this, it is 105 degrees on the heat index down here in mid-afternoon and, well, I just ain't ready for that yet y'all!

7 layer pasta salad includes layers of shredded lettuce, rotisserie chicken, broccoli, cooked pasta, green peas, chopped tomato and shredded cheese. It's finished with a topping of a mayonnaise based ranch dressing and garnished with chopped bacon and sliced green onion.

7 Layer Pasta Salad

Layered salads are great for entertaining and holidays, from baby showers to birthdays, Christmas to barbecue season, and really versatile enough that you can pretty much theme them flavor-wise to anything from basic, to Asian, to Italian or Tex-Mex.

A seafood pasta salad made from crab, crawfish and shrimp, dressed with a Cajun seasoned buttermilk mayonnaise blend.

Seafood Pasta Salad

This is a great coastal Deep South seafood pasta salad that is pretty common down here, and I love it, although it's more often known as Imitation Crab Salad.

I know, I know... imitation crab seems to scare some folks as if it's some kind of weird, alien substance, pretending to be food, when really, it is generally just a basic mix of Alaskan Pollock, King Crab meat and other seafood, and, it actually works great for salads like this. Personally? I really love it in this pasta salad.

A classic, old fashioned macaroni salad, made with elbow macaroni, sweet onion, celery, chopped pickles, and pimento - simple, the kind that grandma used to make.

Classic Old Fashioned Macaroni Salad

Before there were pasta salads filled with all sorts of yummy goodies, there was the humble macaroni salad. Usually a very simple concoction containing elbow macaroni, a little celery, most always pickles and pimentos here in the south, and sometimes onion, it's dressed usually with a very classic mayonnaise dressing.

Macaroni Salad with crunchy veggies, in a mayo and sour cream seasoned dressing, and tossed with black and green olives.

Macaroni and Olive Salad

I love pasta salads, even if they aren't all that photogenic. Though this one is loaded with veggies for crunch, the central feature of this pasta salad is olives - both black and green.

I've already included pimentos as an add-in with this pasta salad, even though I use a stuffed olive, or use your own favorite pitted green olives. I've actually even used olive salad before in place of green olives, when I've had some leftover from making Muffuletta Sandwiches, and it is an excellent, tangy addition, but if you prefer black olives over green, it's still a great pasta salad with black alone.

A classic ham and pasta salad that begins with your favorite pasta, ham, shredded or cubed cheese, celery, onion, and a Ranch dressing. From there you should make it your own!

Ham Pasta Salad

This pasta salad made with ham is a southern classic for sure and great for a potluck or church supper any time of year. Very simple, but a true favorite of mine.

Bow tie pasta, onion, bell pepper, celery and black olives with seasoned boiled shrimp, dressed with a creamy mayonnaise and mustard vinegar dressing.

Shrimp with Bow Tie Pasta Salad

This pasta salad recipe for shrimp with bow tie pasta is hands down one of my summertime favorites, but honestly it is great for any time of the year. It's a great dish to make when you need something for a potluck, church social, and any party you have in mind.