Sunday Suppers: Amanda Moore’s Deli Style Pasta Salad

With the seasons changing and fall and the holidays right around the corner, we’re kicking off Lid & Ladle’s first ever “Sunday Suppers” series.

All season long, this series will focus on comforting, cozy meals that are prepared and enjoyed with loved ones—whether that be immediate family, close friends or a large Sunday meal enjoyed by friends and family alike.

From lasagnas and soups to tamales and Sunday roasts, this series will draw connections between those recipes we enjoy during the chilly, rainy, cozy days of fall and winter and the people, places and, most importantly, recipes that bring us comfort and make us feel at home.

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This is a recipe that’s 15 years in the making!

Now, it’s barely a shadow of the recipe I saw when I was much younger and newly out on my own, but I still look back fondly on the original.

It started in a Taste of Home Magazine Pasta Cookbook back in 2006 or 2007. I worked at a grocery store at the time as a cashier and I saw it at checkout while we were slow, so I decided to thumb through it. I’m fairly certain, that at the time, it was the recipe on the cover. I bought the magazine and made the recipe according to the directions.  Well, at first I did. 

The original recipe was good and everyone that tried it enjoyed it, but I decided I wanted to experiment with the ingredients and the preparation. I’m so glad I did, because here we are all these years later, and this is easily my most requested dish. 

My family asks me to make it for every holiday; I’ve had a couple friends ask me to make it so they could take it to parties; I even have a nephew who has asked for it as his birthday gift on more than one occasion. I’m getting ready to have my first grandbaby at the end of February 2024 and I have no doubt I’ll be making it for the baby shower.

I also love how good it is at bringing everyone together—if I want to get all my family and friends together in the same place, all I have to do is just make this pasta salad and tell them all what time to come over. It’s like my own personal homing signal!

— Amanda Moore, Sur La Table Culinary Website Producer

Ingredients:

• 3 16oz boxes rainbow colored rotini
• 1 8oz stick pepperoni
• 1 8oz stick salami
• 12 strips thick cut bacon
• 1 dozen hard-boiled egg whites
• 2 2.25oz cans of sliced ripe olives
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 2-3 pints of cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
• 3-4 16oz bottles Kraft Tuscan House Italian dressing
• ¼ cup jarred, sliced jalapenos
• Fresh cracked pepper to taste

To make the pasta salad:

1. Cook and drain your pasta, put it in a bowl, add 1 of the bottles of dressing, stir and allow to cool.
2. Cook your eggs, peel, and dice the egg whites into large chunks, allow them to cool. 
3. Cook your bacon, drain on a paper towel, allow to cool, and crumble.
4. Drain the olives, add them to the bowl of cooled pasta. 
5. Chop your onion and add it to the bowl. 
6. Cut your cherry tomatoes into halves or quarters depending on the size and add them to the bowl.
7. Add the jalapenos and egg whites.
8. Add bacon, pepperoni, and salami to the bowl. *Note: Before you add your pepperoni and salami, make sure the pasta, bacon and egg whites are cooled completely. If not, some of the fat in the salami and pepperoni will render and make your pasta salad oily.
9. Add another bottle and a half of the dressing, stir, add black pepper, stir again.

If your pasta salad lasts more than a day, add the last half bottle (or more if you opted to buy 4) of dressing, as the pasta absorbs the dressing. Stir well as it settles at the bottom if it sits undisturbed for too long. Just add ½ a bottle at a time and stir.

For a fun summer twist on this recipe, or just to expand the batch, try adding these as well:

• 2 medium cucumbers
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 orange bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper